vocation

  • Outer Banks

    In the long, snowy, record-breaking Winter that led up to our Outer Banks vacation, I would often imagine myself on the beach in April. I thought, if I can just make it through the cold and snow, I’ll be rewarded there. I imagined myself flat on my back in what I hoped would be hot…

  • Connected

    I got to music class early and set up my iPod dock first thing, as I always do.  As the children came in, I was prepared and ready.  I pressed play and within six seconds, the song abruptly shut off.  “You need to charge it!,” yelled one of my students.  Little kids are so technologically…

  • Boy

    I am sitting on my son’s bed, listening to him play on his keyboard with such expression, it makes me shake my head at the beauty. A lifetime of experiences has brought him to the point of playing this way. Piano lessons, yes, but also a passion for movies and their music, the drama of…

  • Slow

    Lately when I run, I go too fast, get winded, and need to stop and walk. That whole ‘race-stop-walk-race’ cycle is so frustrating, because I lose my stride, I feel like I’m failing, I see others streaming past. Lately when I parent, I race ahead in my mind to the time of college application and…

  • Pails

    We had just parked the beach buggy. My sixteen-year old son and fourteen-year old daughter went off to play catch, so I sighed my way into my new beach chair and scanned the horizon. I saw the most adorable couple of older ladies chatting, a few young families, teenage girls already baking in the sun,…

  • Unwavering

    I stopped in, as I sometimes do on a Wednesday, to the grotto at Stonehill to say a few prayers.  I have been so much in need of direction lately, feeling a change that is in process but which I cannot yet see.  It feels like a pulling or stretching, and it’s uncomfortable and exhausting,…

  • WReSTLe

    Write. Read. Sing. Teach. Love. Lately, I have been thinking that I am on the verge of something new. I am mindful of this hunch I have, and am open to the idea that I am being led to a new ministry, or job, or experience. If that is the case, I want to cooperate…

  • Cookies and Tater Tots

    Each time I step into the my hometown elementary school to teach Kindergarten music, I’m hit with the smell of cookies and tater tots.  It’s a smell that brings me right back to the time when my kids attended this school, and it evokes strong memories of those long-ago days.  I can see my Kindergarten-aged…

  • Dear Julie,

    Dear Julie, I am truly thankful to God for letting our lives intersect.  It was clear almost from the start that He had a hand in putting us together, and I am grateful.  When I think of you, memories come rushing in, and I want to hold on to them all. I remember… After seeing…

  • That’s What We Do

    I looked a beat too long at a young mother and her baby boy at Market Basket yesterday. She was settling him into the seat, and sweet talking in his ear. She might have been me sixteen years ago. She looked up and smiled, and I apologized, explaining that I sometimes really miss those days. We talked…