Stories weave themselves into the fabric of our lives and irrevocably change us. That my story did this for Nikki seems a miracle, or at least an act of grace. Perhaps the miracle is that I actually got to know Nikki and watch her build her own amazing story with my words in the margins.
Why I Write, Part 1: Nikki Kirby Read More »
I can’t even write the words “blind faith” without my skin crawling. Despite forty-six years of attending church and more than half that time intentionally engaged in spiritual practices, enough of me is rational, academic, and post-modern that I’m unwilling to “blindly” do anything.
The literary world isn’t served well by our super-star culture. Publishers throw money at certain books to guarantee their stardom. Readers get a thrill from reading the books of famous people rather than from reading good stories. And writers must labor at building platforms rather than honing our craft.
How then can we crow-bar ourselves out of hierarchical thinking into a place of greater freedom?
Hierarchy & Division in the Writing World Read More »
Who knows why our bodies are the way they are, fleshy and fit, broken and breaking out, male and female and the spectrum between? Who understands the indomitable nature of our souls? Creation unfurls immeasurable variety, and all of it can be transparent to this unexpected, revising love.
In Praise of TransParency Read More »
If moral writing is “unmistakably and unsentimentally rooted in love,” bring it on!
Moral writing? Uncool, but bring it on! Read More »
We can be in dialogue with our whole being, accepting what life makes of us, taking what has happened, and making of it something new. From this dynamic exchange comes aliveness—our own and the world’s.
The funny thing is that, wrong as we are, we do belong here, and wrong as our work may be, it belongs as well. Everything is cracked, and everything is beautiful.
Broken & Beautiful: How the Light Gets In Read More »
I thought of her over the long weekend without me, pouring all her energy into this paper representation of our family; I imagined her bent over the dining room table, making her passionate “I love you—I love you—I love you” into little flat people she could give hair-dos and tenderly clothe, and I saw finally how we’d each in our own ways been praying all weekend, placing our hearts into this vast, connected, and holy family.
Paper Doll Spirituality Read More »
Revision insists that we reject the single story in favor of layered, complex, and contradictory stories. Just as intimacy and awareness break down our stereotypes, intimacy with and awareness of our material break apart our over-simplifications and half-truths.
Undoing the Single Story Read More »
Shared sleep changes us. It teaches our bodies what they can never learn otherwise, that we can be together in that warm dissolution.