Part 1: Do the Best You Can When my daughter was three, I bought her an Indian costume from Old Navy. That year, she toddled around on her quest to fill her plastic pumpkin pail with candy in a thick brown fringed dress complete with headband and felt feathers. I thought she was adorable. I had never heard the term cultural appropriation. People around me didn’t use terms like Indigenous or Native. Growing up, if people wanted clarification about Indians… Read more
February 13, 2020
All Dogs Go To Heaven: A Reflection On Common Things
February 13, 2020 By Alia Joy
“I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.” ― Mary Oliver Some days writing saves my life, others reading does the trick and I hoard stories inked by other souls that breathe in me- the stuff of life, the wonder or heartbreak, or mystery, or rage. I sigh and sink in to ponder the degrees of separation between lives lived with fathomless individuality and yet even… Read more
February 4, 2020
Man Of Sorrows, My Comforter
February 4, 2020 By Alia Joy
I am a wisp of a girl, all baby fine hair and plastic barrettes that slip down my part, no sooner than my mom placed them, when I learn how stories help us live. I slip from her lap, from beneath the cover of pages, the refuge of a sturdy book spine, and her steady voice spinning words I know by heart into my ears. I know every syllable, every word, every story. But I climb down to explore my… Read more
May 17, 2019
A Turn on the Mat: The Gift of Weakness in the Community of Faith
May 17, 2019 By Alia Joy
Happy Friday, friends! Although I’ve not yet read my friend, Courtney Ellis’s new book, Almost Holy Mama, I’ve come to love her wisdom, writing, and the way she sees God. I’m so pleased to welcome her to this space with a taste of her new book, which is available for pre-order! Please give her a warm welcome! I’m an introvert. In my lowest seasons of fatigue, fear, and spiritual wandering I curl up in my shell like a hermit… Read more
March 20, 2019
Weakness At Its Most Wondrous: Strength
March 20, 2019 By Alia Joy
My first book, Glorious Weakness: Discovering God in All We Lack, comes out in two weeks. Most mornings find me nestled with my laptop gazing out the window at the silver morning as I work to tell people about it. I believe in the message of my book and the stories it contains. I believe we need to know God’s goodness, especially when life feels like it’s anything but good. We need the reminders, our gospel on repeat. Christ crucified…. Read more
February 23, 2019
Writing Tips: Do What Works
February 23, 2019 By Alia Joy
I was talking to a friend this morning and we were discussing our favorite books on the craft of writing. I told her I think I’ve read ’em all. What was glaringly missing, though, are mainstream published books on the craft of writing, written by POC. I can think of one. Amy Tan’s, Where The Past Begins. That’s it. Now there may be more, but if there are, I don’t hear them talked about in writing circles or classes or… Read more
January 17, 2019
To Feel Again: The Tedium of Surviving
January 17, 2019 By Alia Joy
More than anything, surviving is tedious. It is a million small breaths strung together. It is a million neurons and synapses and chemical reactions trying to rearrange themselves and play nice. It is day after day of in-between spaces. Somewhere between the living and the dead is where the tedium of surviving resides. It is the upside-down. The shadow world. The shadow’s body and mind. I am a sleepwalker who never sleeps. I got out of bed for a couple… Read more
December 27, 2018
Living In The Tension of Beauty and Pain
December 27, 2018 By Alia Joy
I’ve been mostly absent from social media for the past week. There are seasons where I come and go. I hurt my back and my lungs haven’t been clear and sometimes the pain in my life makes me hostile. Near constant pain is exhausting and sometimes it makes me tender to the world, charitable and generous because I know what it is to hurt. But sometimes it just makes me bitter. Social media can be a treacherous terrain when I’m… Read more
December 13, 2018
Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit For They Will Lead the Way
December 13, 2018 By Alia Joy
Advent is here. We are straining forward each day with anticipation. But still, this season of darkness and yearning is upon me. The early day’s sun retreats leaving a smattering of white twinkling lights strung in rows across the tree like fingerprints. The candle’s flesh is melting down its sides like shedding skin and it flickers a great hope in the darkness. I can’t help but feel my sickness is an assault on God’s goodness trying to blind me to… Read more
December 6, 2018
Grieving Our Celebrations
December 6, 2018 By Alia Joy
I grieve every Christmas. I miss my dad the most this time of year. His birthday is the 29th of December and he almost lived to 60, but then he didn’t. He died a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, eight years ago. Grief always seemed so out of place with Christmas fast approaching. I believed it was somehow ungrateful to approach Christmas and the gift of a Savior and King with anything less than unbridled joy. It seemed cheap and… Read more
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