The past few years, I haven’t wanted to celebrate New Year’s. The stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and a country struggling with political discord, racism and gun violence tempered my mood and dashed my social plans. Hope was hard to hold onto. How could anyone plan or dream when the day-to-day was so precarious?
Year in review
On my 37th birthday, what I wanted most of all was time to write. I put the baby down for his first nap, pacified my older boy with his tablet and retrieved my pale green journal. Before sitting down, I lit a candle, which is my writing ritual. I like imagining the flame as myContinue reading “Year in review”
Gratitude list, November 2022
for naptime, blessed naptime, a moment of peace amidst rhe chaos of Legos & crayons & rounds of Uno…
First blush
All summer she basked // in the sun. // Now the days are dwindling . . .
Our world
I would like to create a home
in which there are rarely any messes
but that seems impossible
given the fact that children live here…
On growth
Growth in this season doesn’t look like I thought it would. Sometimes growth is a giant leap, a trust fall into the unknown. Other times, it’s incremental, a series of small steps taken again and again. Growth is showing up to the path, putting one foot in front of the other, falling into bed atContinue reading “On growth”
To ride on his own
And on this splendid summer day, a boy learned to ride his bike. He zoomed down the alley while…
Howl
I stare out at the graveyard we pass daily on our commute home from preschool and try to make sense of this moment. Miles away in Uvalde, Texas, there are moms and dads who won’t pick up their children from school tonight.
Time to fly
Last Wednesday, I bid farewell to a job I loved. It was my dream job, the job that combined my passion for words with my deepest held beliefs, a job that rattled and refined that faith, a job where I encountered the Divine in the voices of others. It was more than a job, itContinue reading “Time to fly”
Where I’ve prayed (an incomplete list)
At the foot of Hart Lake, wisps of breath swirling in the alpine air, marveling at the breadth of sky and pines and Cascade Mountains, feeling so small, feeling the expansiveness of God’s presence; In the Chapel of the Resurrection for 10 p.m. worship, surrounded by classmates, basking in the glow of candlelight, singing “JesusContinue reading “Where I’ve prayed (an incomplete list)”
Erin Strybis 