Shiloh-on-Hampton

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When you're mistaken for Rosie the Riveter, count it all joy

On a work Zoom call a few weeks ago, someone told me I looked like I could model for Rosie the Riveter. It was probably the way I was wearing my hair, but it truly made my day. Today is International Women’s Day, and since I am late chiming in on the “Have you chosen your Word- of-the-Year?” question, it seemed like a good opportunity to finally do so! It is still the first quarter of 2024, after all, and I have yet to set my professional goals at work. The deadline for that is March 15. (Beware the Ides!) For my word of the year, I chose “Strong.” This is as much an affirmation as it is a challenge. A few years ago, my team at work did the CliftonStrengths assessment and we’ve continued to hold ongoing conversations about our individual and collective strengths and how we use them in our roles and which strengths we’d like to use more. For someone who has felt her whole life that she is deficient because she didn’t possess X or Y traits like someone else, recognizing that my ...

That holds September's weathered green

A few weeks ago, I learned that that the Sycamore Gap tree at Hadrian's Wall was felled, in what appears to have been an act of vandalism . It is a place I've not yet visited, a beauty I will never behold. Gerard Manley Hopkins' lament over " Binsey Poplars " comes to mind: "After-comers cannot guess the beauty been. / Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve / Strokes of havoc unselve / The sweet especial scene,/ Rural scene, a rural scene, /Sweet especial rural scene." In college, I wrote a poem about the color green that speaks of "wool that holds September's weathered green." Lion Brand makes a yarn called "forest heather" that is close to the color I envisage: green with flecks of gold and rust. I've knit a child's sweater and a fringed throw in this colorway. I will probably knit other pieces as time unwinds. I don't know if I will write another poem like this one. And now I will never see that tree, standing in its c...

You will be like a well-watered garden

It isn’t every morning I get to enjoy my cup of French press coffee out on my patio, but this morning the cool breeze and birdsong beckoned me for a half hour of reflection among the hydrangeas and drift roses. One of the first things I did when I moved to my townhouse three years ago was to hire a local garden designer. The space held potential but lacked design or cohesion. A few random shrubs, a clematis vine, a stand of lilies. Together, we devised a plan. Along with two workmen, the designer helped me tear things out and install rock pavers, line the path to the gate with bricks and literally put down roots in a new chapter of my life. When my newlywed sister and her husband purchased their first home as a short sale eight years ago, they saw its obvious flaws, but they didn’t let that deter them from its potential. They also didn’t wait until everything was perfectly remodeled on the house before they began transforming the ramshackle yard into their own corner of paradise. ...

All real living is meeting (Buber)

It’s one thing to plan to meet up with a friend. It’s another to go to your favorite bakery on Saturday morning and see what happens after settling at the corner table for four, with just yourself for company, and tucking into your caramelized onion quiche and pour-over coffee. It feels like going off the grid somehow. With the heart-shaped brownie to go and a 15% tip, your tab comes to $17.20. You don’t feel elated about inflation, but here you are. Your life is a perpetual question of others: “Will you be there for me?” The answers vary from resounding yes-es to indirect no-s. Rarely does someone reject outright the bid for connection. You remind yourself you aren’t alone in the world. You have connections. Even if those connections are often transactional. Young moms with toddlers straggle in. A couple with an infant in a car seat enjoying their nacho danishes (a Father’s Day special that sounds less than appealing). A little girl clutching two naked baby dolls, one black, one w...

Life, lemon drops, and the goodness of God

I can’t imagine what my mother had to take to the dry cleaners in those days. We were homesteading in the 1980s and lived in a one-room house with no indoor plumbing in the middle of nowhere Texas Hill Country. Every summer, we coaxed a garden from dry caliche. My dad raised beefalo. We did most of our laundry on the porch in an old ringer-washer and hung it on the line to dry in the wind and sun. What was dry-cleaning anyway? I had wondered about that. How could you get clothes clean without water? But I can remember pulling in under the sandstone drive-through of what had been a filling station but had been converted to the dry cleaners. We were driving our 1966 turquoise Dodge sedan with no air conditioning. My mother cranked the window down all the way and handed the attendant the bag of clothes in exchange for the claim ticket. If we were lucky, the attendant would hand out lemon drops, one for each of us. You couldn’t get your hopes up though because th...

To weep with those who weep

My friend Ann Ahrens has done something many of us dream of: she has written a book that matters . I am deeply grateful for Ann's commitment to the biblical practice of lament, and for her enduring friendship over many seasons. Her understanding of lament and its role in the life of the covenant people of God and her willingness to weep with those who weep have profoundly enriched my life and understanding. As someone who has spent most of her life stuffing her negative emotions before she tries to pray, I have found Ann's scholarship on lament in the Psalms, the life of Jesus, and the New Testament incredibly freeing. She has helped me understand that the safest place to process negative emotions is, in fact, the presence of God. This is good news for all of us. Whether you are involved in leading worship at your church, supporting others in seasons of grief and suffering, or simply seeking an authentic relationship with God, this book will bless your soul and help yo...