Aaron and Leanna came to our apartment bearing gifts of Whole Food pizza, because Travis had been gone for eight days and I was home with our boys, and hungry. Leanna handed me another gift, a teal coffee mug with a rooster imprinted on the front. Inside was a little tin box with a picture of St. Francis on the front. “Remember, you said you wished you had a rosary to pray with?” The wooden, clay colored beads were accented... Read more
When community works the way it’s supposed to, we are always cared for, always filled up before we can claim that we’re empty. Travis leaves for ten days to teach, and I am brought meals. My sister drives eleven hours with her daughter to help me for five days. Melissa feeds us BBQ sandwiches and sweet potato fries. People smile and laugh with my boys, and they don’t realize how much we need it. These are the tiny things that... Read more
Once a week, I drive 45 minutes to another part of my city to play guitar and sing with my dear friend, Avery. A few months ago, God opened an oddly unexpected and beautiful door. I imagine that it is huge and bright teal, with a brassy, golden doorknob and no window, because what’s on the other side is too beautiful to be previewed ahead of time. Like this one, via Apartment Therapy: I like to think it is a door... Read more
When Travis has to go out of town, I quickly jump into single-mother-mode. He’s gone for ten days this time, and we’ve got two days down, but who’s counting? Maybe it’s that instant flashback to my mother as a single mom. We were 9, 17, and 19, the three kids, watching her do this crazy dance to supply our needs and keep her soul intact. So when he’s gone and it’s just me and the boys, I think a lot... Read more
“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” –Frederick Beuchner tyrant: an oppressor, absolute ruler tyranny: a cruel or harsh act Today, we choose. Within the decorated but white-washed walls of our two-bedroom apartment, we ask two small boys to trust us, to listen, to let us rule. And outside, on the streets, we look each other in the eyes– if we’re brave. We look and listen, if we acknowledge that who we are is... Read more
As someone who has moved a few times in her life and actually really loves change, the first year being in a new place has been pretty great for me. And I’m still asking myself what more there is to do and be and grow into here, what’s waiting for us around every corner. For the third leg of our trip back home to the Midwest, we drove into the fullness of the Ozark mountains– oceans of trees surrounding us... Read more
My in-laws say that after you live in a place and then move on, you look back to find that time sort of just collapses in on itself. I came home with all my boys, back to Joplin, where I grew up from third grade on to my early twenties when we moved away. There, it’s so true. Time has collapsed into milliseconds, and I barely remember anything. I’d forgotten that I actually lived there, that I loved there as... Read more
When you go back home, you get to walk back into spaces and worlds that helped shape who you are, for better and for worse. And then you leave, remembering who you want to be, what you want to create for your own home, your own family, in your own gifting and calling. We drove back to the midwest, back to memories and cultures that we’ve been out of for a year now. The things that we grew up with... Read more
“Where we are, not where we’d want to be, is where we must begin.” –Brother David Steindl-Rast “The best preparation for a life of prayer is to become more intensely human.” –Kenneth Leech “It takes so little to make a child happy, that it is a pity in a world full of sunshine and pleasant things that there should be any wistful faces, empty hands, or lonely little hearts.” –Louisa May Alcott, Little Men “If all life is holy, then... Read more
We’ve got the movie Selma sitting in its case downstairs. But I’ve been afraid to watch it. Because I’m afraid to face a pain that I do not understand. Because the closest I come to minority status is through my Native American relatives, my great-great-grandma Myrtle on my mother’s side and Hannah Brant on my father’s side, who both had a piece of land in Oklahoma. And even their pain, I can’t quite grasp or put words to. What spaces in our... Read more
Stories - with Kaitlin B. Curtice
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