“How did she die?” I asked Drew at the breakfast table. It was my automatic response to his sharing that a friend’s mother had passed away. As I listened to his reply, I began to grow uncomfortable with my question. Why did I ask that? I wondered. Do I really need to know? Death will happen to all of us, yet it seems to take us by surprise when someone dies. And this is good, because something in us knows that we were made for eternity—that death is not the way it is supposed to be. ..

On the one year anniversary of my grandfather’s death, I found myself on a plane to North Carolina to be present for my grandmother’s final days. It felt all too familiar—that heavy cloud of anxious dread, praying with every breath that she would hold on and that I would make it in time to say a meaningful goodbye. The preparing to sit with my beloved one in the space between life and death during the liminal season between winter and spring, to hold her hand until the end: this felt like too much to bear and exactly as it should be, all at the same time.

Every time I look at the scar on my left knee, I remember. We were living in Lexington, Kentucky at the time and I was an exuberant nine years old. It was summertime, the summer of the big tree in our front yard that I never tired of climbing. We were living in a rental home, but that tree felt like a true home to me and I wanted to live in its branches. . .

It was a bright and glorious afternoon in May when I found myself eating in silence with a group of four strangers. I was attending a training retreat in Malibu, California with Ren­o­varé, and this was our first and strangest assignment: to eat lunch in silence with our group, to spend one additional hour in silence together somewhere on the Franciscan retreat center campus, and then to begin our first official meeting together by sharing from the depths of our souls. I couldn’t have known that these strangers would soon become impossibly dear to me, so as I sat there silently eating I felt anxious and did my best to stay present while also avoiding eye contact with those surrounding the white plastic outdoor table. . .

Being married to a pastor means that my designated seat on Sunday mornings is always, always the front row. This is slightly awkward because Drew and I are the only ones on the front row, across the whole church. There is no hiding. Although I am used to it now, this seating arrangement was initially difficult for someone who once preferred arriving late, sitting in the back, and making a hasty exit once the service was over. When Drew goes up to preach, it is just me holding down the fort up there like in the Hunger Games when the heroine steps forward from a long line of people and says “I volunteer as tribute” so the rest can go free. For an introvert, sitting alone on the front row can sometimes feel heroic. . .

When it became clear that rumors of a global pandemic were, in fact, true, two things happened almost immediately:

1.     Drew and I began exercising in our living room to workout videos on a YouTube channel called “PopSugar.”

2.     I learned how to bake bread.

One of these practices has remained, while the other has mercifully slipped away now that we are elite card-carrying members of the Auburn community fitness room…

First of all, I think you should know that I am writing this in my fuzzy purple Care Bear adult onesie, a beloved comfort object which my brother-in-law presented to me as a “welcome to the family” gift for my first Christmas as a Dixon. Second of all, I feel prompted to tell you why I am wearing this suit…

I am not where I thought I’d be by now—as a human or a student of literature. Ever since the pandemic, I have been unable to read nearly anything except children’s fantasy books, poetry, and British mysteries. It has been a bit embarrassing to try to explain why I have not read all of the glorious and wonderful non-fiction books that have come into the world over the past three years. . .

I wonder what Mary was doing one minute before Gabriel arrived to announce the salvation of the world and the role she would play in it—the moment now known for all time as “The Annunciation.” Was she praying, sleeping, sweeping, or baking? Was she holding someone else’s child? Was she laughing or crying? Maybe she was singing quietly to herself. The one thing we do know is that the angel’s sudden appearing was an unanticipated interruption of her ordinary life. . .

This year, our little wooden Joseph lies flat on his back our fake fireplace mantle. Knees bent, still clutching that helpful staff even though he is not a shepherd, his wooden eyes stare wide open in wonder at the ceiling. Who can say what he has seen? In several days dear Joseph will have the opportunity to kneel upright and be reunited with Mary. But for now, Joseph is dreaming. For most of my life, I have regarded Joseph as simply “that guy who wasn’t a jerk about it and marries Mary”—a hesitant yet benevolent Nativity tagalong…

During my travels in Ireland, I began to notice something a bit strange about how I experienced the passage of time. For the first time in forever, it felt like there was time enough—time to do and be and explore and breathe and rest. Time was no longer scarce, fleeting, and slipping away; instead, it was robust, entire, and expanding to fill itself each day. As the days progressed, I began to trust the gift of discovering this new way of being in time. . .

“It’s hard to put into words the beauty I’ve beheld, a beauty which has cradled me in her generous embrace. But I will try.”

I wrote those words two nights before leaving Ireland in an attempt to hold close what I sensed was already slipping away from me. Over the next six pages, I wrote out all of the enchanted, Spirit-soaked things I saw and touched and tasted and heard under the simple directive, “Do not forget.” Tonight, I write by candle light for atmosphere and with tea for warmth and also with anxiety because I long to show you what I saw and give you what I was given over nine days in Ireland, but sometimes words fail and that is a grace, too…

Peregrinatio is a Celtic concept which describes an embodied, holy wandering for the sake of Christ. It is a type of pilgrimage which involves no destination but the intentional entrusting of oneself to the wind and waves of wherever the Spirit sends you…

It was a busy week. I took multiple road trips in a seven day span for the purpose of being with people I love, and it was absolutely worth it. Yet Monday morning found me exhausted, and even though I sensed God’s invitation to rest, I ignored it thinking, “Rest is for weak people. I should not need this much rest. I just need to push ahead and I will be fine”. . .

Last month I had a dream in which I saw my reflection in the mirror, and what I saw terrified me…

On Monday morning, I asked Drew the following question:

“What compels us to believe the people who have had visions—who claim to have seen God and angels in a true mystical experience? Like how did Joan of Arc, a teenage girl who claimed to see angels, convince an entire army to follow her in defying the conquest of England?”…

Allow me to share a story with you from the annals of family lore. It was the summer of 2006; I was sixteen years old at the time, and all eighteen of us aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents were gathered to celebrate my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. . .

I am ready to be happy.

To let myself be content, not striving.

I am ready to be free.

Lord, have your way in me.

I wrote these words in my journal last week as a declaration, a promise, and a hope. A wise friend had recently shared with me her practice of writing or speaking aloud, “I am ready to be happy.” This simple statement seemed so obvious. . .

Some weeks, the thoughts and words flow easily. Other weeks, it feels like every word is squeezed out of a nearly-dry reservoir of inspiration. This was one of those weeks. I tried all morning to just write, for heaven’s sake, but when the time came to take my parents to the airport in the early afternoon I hadn’t written a thing…

I wrote this poem while sitting at my family’s kitchen table in Chelan, watching a thick blanket of smoke from a local fire obscure more and more until all I could see was a couple of steps beyond the windows…