When, at 1:00 am, our neighbor risesfor his nightly ritual, plinks a bit, then— perhaps inspired—passionately pounds out“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” my husband

“…the lion shall eat straw like the ox.” — Isaiah 11:7“Is this what it’s like…a little blood here, a chomp there … must everything whole

a rattler come sliding through the grassslow as digestion. I stamped the dirt—but you know effort in a dream is like kicking cotton— it kept

This world is a garden fearfully madean unruly orchard once well formedthough now decayed I am a gardenerwho mourns well-meaning overwhelmed misguided having let children

The soul of my cat is in the riseand fall of her breathing,undulations like wind overa prairie, softest plumes tremblingon the spine of a knife.

A friend loves at all times … a sibling is born for adversity — Proverbs 17:17 friendship is a reciprocal relationshipcharacterized by intimacymade faithful because

This place is flushed with a friendly lighton Sunday evenings when the days grow short,but not on this Lord’s Day morning. On thisday of the

I said I wouldn’t do it,so how does it happenon a Sunday we tookcommunion that I findmyself staring at aglowing, naked image?And I do not

(after Scott Erickson’s With Us – Face to Face) Did it feel different, I wonder,to hold the child? Could she hearthe hum of creation vibrating