When I send private newsletters to subscribers, y’all, readers get whole lotta Texas. It’s like my words flow in a cascade off the cliff of “stage fright”, comfortable and with ease. But then I come here, public and all. I strain for every word. Back-spacing, replacing, and perfecting each sentence. When writing blog posts, I arrange or re-arrange my thoughts. I place words in a logical and smooth...
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Guest Post: by Adela Just {I remember, a couple of years ago, reading Adela’s first blog post. She drew me in with her topic on failure and then had me at, “That moment when your child publicly decides to air his grievances and all the other parents are staring at you as if none of their children ever pitched a fit in all their born days.” As parents, we live these hard and humilitating blips in time. But...
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“Each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up.” Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak My feet flew over Tommi’s sticker-y grass. I sailed like a bird flapping its arms, except mine flailed to keep from landing on my head. I had kicked my feet in one final push, as high as the metal swing set would allow, when I launched myself out. I was nine years old. All I knew–I was going to win the...
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This is where it all began. This was the beginning of not letting fear rule me. From teenager to adulthood, I had hidden my work in secret places. Then one day, about 15 years ago, I burned it all. I destroyed every poem, short story, all my work, and I began fresh. I became a blank slate. With nothing. No promise to ever write one tittle of a word or anything, ever again. I started over. And I just lived. For a...
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“The place to which God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Frederick Buechner The fireplace is crackling on yet another snow-y day in Texas. The Eastern Bluebirds have been flocking to our feeders with bright coats contrasting against the white and dull of winter. They like to sit on the rim of our trampoline and dive-bomb delicacies among our dormant...
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Subscribe and receive my free resource, “Breaking Up with Fear,” plus a bonus toolkit of Facebook tips. I have dreamed of words and of art. I even dabbled in painting, long ago. I wrote poetry and hid behind metaphors. However, I imagined these as hobbies irrelevant for adulthood, at least for mine. Art of any kind was not considered a career, a talent maybe, but not something to pour your whole life...
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