Buttercups in Bloom

This week we've been faced with a difficult situation.  The situation has moved me from sadness to frustration and back to sadness.  Earlier this week one of E's friends came to her to tell her that a video; in which she and another student were the center point {they were merely laughing and being silly but still, privacy was breached}, was making its rounds within a group of kids at school.  She and the other student immediately went to the Dean of Student Life to share their story. They shared that they felt violated and felt as if they had been the target of misconduct by another student.  Our hearts sank, we worried about our kid, we were filled with sadness that this place that had provided her new life and a new beginning had suddenly been tarnished.  This safe place had not provided safety, it had been the arena of cruelty and one again she might find herself on the outside looking in.  We leaned into the reality that E had not sat back, she had...

Hospitality at its core is the “quality or disposition of receiving and treating guests and strangers in a warm, friendly, generous way.”  I am big on hospitality, maybe its the southern girl in me but greeting and creating a warm space is vitally important. I want others to feel at home, at peace and whole in my space. I want others to experience a place in which they are free to be themselves. Hospitality is easy to extend when it is with someone in which we have extended the invitation. Hospitality flows like the current of a river when we have set the table and the arrival of the guest is a known quantity.  Being gracious and generous is easily embodied when the name of the guest is well worn within the muscles of our being. I am currently experiencing the depths of generosity known as hospitality. It is a hospitality that heard our need and without hesitation invited us into their everyday dwelling (actually we had two families extend this invitation when the reality of...

I've been thinking about waterfalls lately.  Several weeks ago we traversed a path that led to a steep winding staircase. The iron steps were slippery, the wooden steps were flooded with mud and water. Carefully we made our way to the bottom of the staircase and across the boulders that lie some 20-30 yards away from the bottom of the waterfall. In the shade of an old tree, we settled upon the boulders in silence.  The movement of the water cascading over the cliff was mesmerizing.  I'd let my eyes settle at the top trying to follow the stream down into the depths of the pool below, wondering if I could follow a single drop through its journey.  I sat pondering what it would be like to be that one drop making its way from the top into the gathered larger body of water below. In the midst of the comfortable silence that fell between Luke and me, I was taken back by the drops of water descending into the natural pool of water below.  The longer we s...

Blue is painted across the sky. Green blades of grass fill the landscape.  The mountains rising up on my left as I make my way across a blue lane highway in southern Tennessee. Music would not keep my mind from wandering and so for one hour and forty-one minutes this morning I listened to The Archers; my BBC podcast.  The characters kept my heart from racing and my mind from creating a sense of anxiousness. The address on my Google Maps led me to this charming house nestled in a beautiful, old neighborhood.  Three white rockers on the front porch sat ready for guest.  As I turned in, the host opened the door and as I stepped onto the porch she embraced me with a sincere and warm hug. One by one, greetings turned into expressions of embrace. Conversations began. Opening ourselves to who we are, where we see the path unfolding for us, and where we might just be in the years to come. Vulnerability, creating a new culture. Grace and the goodness of sharing a...

I haven't been hiking in months but on Monday I laced up my shoes, put in my earbud (yes, only one because I like to hear all the sounds around me) and stepped out onto the trail.  It's a trail that I have traveled over and over in the past 6 years. I know the twist and turns. I know the nuances of the elevation. I know where the mile markers are without looking down at the app on my phone. I know how long the hike takes (even when I am hiking at my slowest). I know where the rocks are and which ones are steady enough to plant my feet upon. I know where the ground is going to be soft from holding water from the latest rain. The path is familiar.  The path is known. And yet, in the midst of the familiarity, it was hard.  My feet had not traveled the path in more months than I can count.  My muscles felt tight.  My breathing a bit harder as the elevation climbed and then dropped.  It was familiar and yet so different.  The last time I attempte...

Actions. Actions can make you feel as though your soul has been wrapped in warm, weighted blanket. Actions can gently begin to stitch the woundedness within your heart back together so that your heart beats a bit stronger. Actions can eradicate the feelings of timidity and replace it with a bold, courageous stance. Actions can take an ordinary day and transform it into moments of deep laughter and bring complete strangers together Simple actions have the power to change and move the soul. The action of love that came in the form of gift certificates when I was barely able to hold my head up because my heart was breaking in a million pieces in the reality that I was deeply missing Emma on Christmas Eve brought tears streaming down my face.  My sweet congregation had no idea at the time that we weren't just going to St. Louis for a week, but that I would be staying there until Emma was well enough to come home.  The gift of generosity gave us the ability to purc...

One day has turned into two. Two has given way to a week. A week has transformed into two weeks. In some ways it seems odd and yet it is all so familiar.  It's odd in that we are here; here without the love, safety, and support of our team members from McCallum.  It's familiar in that we are here; here on the mountain in the love and safety of our breathtaking community.  The days are turning into weeks and rising of the sun brings thankfulness for another day and each night brings a sliver of doubt that something will lead Emma back to a place of unworthiness, insecurity and to a place where darkness reigns in her being. This life of binge eating isn't about dieting. It is not about restricting the foods that you love {the candy bars, ice cream or cookies} or merely focusing on healthy food.  This new life that we are leaning in to ask us set down judgement about what we or someone else has

And just like that, you begin again. The sun has risen and set without fail. Every 24 hours have brought us closer to a new beginning and yet the familiar.  Today as the sun rose it beckoned us home, to the gentle breeze that is ever present on our front porch.  The sun began to point the way to the trees that are caught in between winter and the slow arrival of spring.  The sun whispered a new beginning and returning to a place where people know your name, embrace you in a deep river of love and stand with you when the darkness slowly encroaches upon you.  In the hours that lay before us, we will pack the car (if you think see the Beverly Hillbillies on the interstate just shake your head and laugh because it's the Diamond's trying to squeeze everything from bedding to luggage to backpacks into a very small Prius), walk the halls of McCallum Place one last time and begin our journey home to our mountain.  We step into the days ahead with trepidation, ...

Grief It rolls in with silence. It overtakes your being; cluttering your mind and stilling your being. You try to busy yourself to shew it away.  You mark off your to-do list not with vigor but as if lifting another weight.  Thre is no working it away or sleeping it away, or closing your eyes wishing it away.  You must stand and welcome the grief before it can be released. Today is a day where grief has rolled in and settled into my core, into the places where it is begging for me to close my eyes in hopes that it might just disappear when I awoke.  It has settled into the depths of my mind leaving me searching and longing for assurance.  Grief has made each conversation and task feel as if it just might break my very being. In 5 short days, we'll be leaving St. Louis to return home to our sweet mountain.  This city that seemed like a foreign land just 8 weeks ago has become home for Emma and me.  Unfamiliarity gave way to confidence.  I...

Yesterday the room was quiet. Bags filled the empty space on the floor. Teenagers sat beside parents on the couches. Parents looked through the leaflets and materials they'd received. The silence in the room was deafening. Yesterday morning while I sat in the waiting room on the couch for to meet with our Dietician I felt the weight of all that was transpiring.  New residents were arriving, and all I could do was to feel the heaviness, anxiousness, sense of loneliness rising up from the silence. Wetness rose in my eyes from the feelings of knowing.  I understood some of the heartaches that had led them to this moment. I understood how long the day would be for both them and their child.  I understood the questions that lie beneath the surface but would not receive an answer.  I understand having to turn your child over to people with whom you had never met; trusting that this would be the answer, that this would lead to health and a new journey.  T...

No judgment.   No critics. That is the mission statement at the gym I recently joined (no, I didn’t join the gym as a resolution to get fit, I joined because I’m living in St. Louis, MO for a bit and wanted to ensure that I was tending to my self). The mission is clear and well understood. It is proclaimed across every piece of equipment and proudly displayed on the walls.   I have been thinking about the mission and the freedom that it not just merely proclaims but freely gives the moment you walk through the doors. I have not set foot in a gym in quite some time, my exercise routine has taken place outdoors for the past 5.5 years and walking into the gym was more than a bit intimidating. Yet every single time I feel as though I should be pushing the level on my stationary bike or the treadmill to a higher level I am reminded that there is no judgment. Literally, no one is judging me, no one is criticizing what my workout routine involves or doesn’t involve. ...