bloom

  • Bloom Where You’re Planted – Raised Catholic episode 11

    Bloom Where You’re Planted – Raised Catholic episode 11

    The following is a transcript from the Raised Catholic podcast. To listen to the podcast, click here. Today is episode 11: Bloom Where You’re Planted Well, hey friends. Two towns away from where I live, there is a half mile stretch of road that contains huge chunks of my life and vocation in various buildings…

  • Hope

    Hope

    On December 31, 2019, I had a lot of hopes.  At our sweet friends’ New Year’s Eve party, I shakily wrote my resolution on a thin piece of cardboard: ‘attend my first writer’s conference’ and then I paused and added something like, ‘pursue publishing’.  In the weeks that followed, I applied for and received a…

  • Pentecost

    Pentecost

    I was walking in one of my favorite places just now when I saw this wooden chapel birdhouse. It’s not the first time I’ve noticed it. In fact, I’ve taken hundreds of pictures of it over the years, in every time and season. Sometimes the leaves are green and full as they are today. Sometimes…

  • Phlox

    Phlox

    I am astounded by phlox.  You know, the tiny little perennial flower that pops up in bright pink, purple, and white this time of year on hillsides and rock walls.  We planted a couple of small bits on our patio around some larger planters four or five years ago and each year it comes back…

  • Move

    Move

    On our street, we bring treats to new neighbors. I remember thirteen years ago, walking with my then six-year old daughter a few doors down to leave a wrapped banana bread on a covered porch in the rain. We couldn’t have known then that our new neighbors would become our dear friends, couldn’t have guessed…

  • Cultivate

    Cultivate

    I’ve participated in the #oneword365 project for a couple of years now. It’s a pretty simple exercise; you prayerfully pick a word that might help define the year, and then allow it to lead you into new growth in the year ahead. It works. In 2017, I was continually reminded that if things weren’t as…

  • Spring

    Spring

    If you live where I live, you’re seeing everything in bloom.   In my tiny yard alone: forsythia, tulips, hosta, dogwood, phlox, azalea, and even dandelions. In my neighborhood, baby leaves are peeping out and growing more with each day, making a welcome canopy of sunlit apple green overhead. And everyone is smiling: all of this…