Garage Archaeology

After an hour, the floor disappears. Everywhere I look, a fine layer of dusty paperclips, dusty books, and dusty teacups covers the hardwood floors of the Green Room, the office guest room which used to be my room, which before that was Noah’s room. Today, it’s a museum of my belongings, all dragged up from…

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The Shorthand of Shared History

The sun is setting over the evergreen spiked canyon as we drive west of Leavenworth, Washington in the North Cascade Mountains. We’ve been climbing–my brother, sister, sister’s boyfriend, brother’s friend and I–for most of the afternoon, and now three of us are searching for a place to camp. “Couldn’t we just light it with toilet…

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Back Again

We didn’t fly much when I was a kid. We were a road-trip-and-camping family. These road trips were long affairs–typically way down to California and back–but they were for sure on the ground. That’s why flying always seems like a miracle to me, and a bit like cheating. Driving takes time, but it makes sense. You…

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Of Graduation, Extravagant Gifts

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 (italics mine) “I think, I think, we can keep it under an hour. It’ll be tricky,…

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A Junior Farewell

I’ve loved this year. I spent today, the last day of classes at BFA, as I’ve spent many  days with this year’s group of students, sitting on the grass by the river, talking about books. Thankful tonight for the blessing of working with these students I so deeply admire and will miss dearly. In lieu of…

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The Runaway Bunny

“I will become a little sailboat, and I will sail away from you.” “If you become a sailboat and sail away from me,” said his mother, “I will become the wind…” The Runaway Bunny, Margaret Wise Brown “Am I late?” she breathes as she whirls into the room, a hurricane of red hair with bags–school,…

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On Messes

Living in this beautiful mess is who we are. From “All I Am,” by Most People I’ve never loved messes. Not that I’m compulsively neat, of course. I have my blind spots, like everyone–mugs that sit on the counter longer than they should, that piece of paper still on the floor of my room, which is…

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The Love We Share: M-Trip Sunday

We’re on the sixth slideshow when my roommate, Emily, leads her team to the front of the auditorium. The mostly-female team are all wearing the shapeless, colorful dresses that they wore for their week in a Central Asian village. This, along with covering their hair and serving the three men who accompanied them, was their…

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Romania: Raising Walls, Raising Children

For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this…

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To Romania We Go!

Spring is in the air in Kandern, as I sit with wide open windows on the last Wednesday night before Spring Break. This means that in three short days, I’ll be heading to Oradea, Romania with a team of 14 students and six leaders, where we’ll build three apartment homes for Adrian, Valerie and Maria,…

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