I see her face. Round. Long hair, lain upon her shoulders. I saw her long ago, but didn’t know her name. Still, the picture stays tattooed some place deep where I can’t see. God-prints aren’t ever rubbed raw, get old, don’t die down with time and oppression, and with a life lived warn, like jeans frayed […]
Giving With Purpose
He’s fourteen.Some say fourteen-year-old’s are caught up in themselves. Well, Luke isn’t. He’s different. I met him at an orphan conference. “He said he wants to do something meaningful,” his mom tells me as I sit next to her, us hearing how most foster kids come into care with a t-shirt, maybe some underwear….little more. And […]
Missing Some One at Christmas?
I’ve always seen it in my head; strolling down the lighted path, talking, laughing, playing games with family at a time when people gasp for breathe, traffic stops stagnant, and people wish frantically for “just a little more time” to finish what needs to be done, for Christmas. Each year, my intentions were clear, opinions sometimes […]
When a Local’s Warning is Truth
“Be careful of the riptides, man. They are pretty dangerous right now.” A toothless, homeless-looking Hawaiian, looks up as we walk past, dangling snorkels in our hands. Us new to the islands. Him, a local.. And sometimes those that have been around awhile, those that have rode the waters, tasted the tides, those that have experienced […]
How to Stop the Rat-Race and Enjoy the Ones You Love this Season
I pull her from her crib. Eyes fix on the sparkling lights that shine across a dark room. And who doesn’t like light when it pierces bright, fluid, right into our very own souls, in a room black, void of seemingly any light at all? I know her story. And while spirits run restless, shift, dart, […]
What a White Mom tells her African American Daughter about Ferguson
“It’s sad and scary.” She sits straight up at the pub-style chair before heading off to school. Her eyes just seeing fire-laden pictures of Ferguson burning the night before. She is eight. And contrary to everything in me, wanting to keep silent, wanting to shield her innocence from a world gone crazy, wanting to hide in […]