art

The Maria Scarf

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Introducing the Maria, the first in a new collection I’m launching launch to benefit refugees and asylum seekers around the world.

Made ethically in North America, the Maria is available in a variety of sizes and prices in silk, modal, satin, and polychiffon. Choose from two colors: coral/teal or rust/scarlet.

100% of the proceeds go to the Maria Skobtsova House in Calais this wintertime.

This design has been a labor of love for a place and a people I care for deeply. Whether or not you buy the Maria, I hope you’ll consider any gift that supports those searching for safety this holiday season.

PS: If you’re like me and you need some ideas of how to creatively style a square scarf, may I suggest this blog post, or this one?

On Writing, Risking, and Giving It Away

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At some point last year, I found myself surrounded by piles of finished and half-finished poems, sitting at a crossroads of sorts.

It was rare for me to be squeezing in this much writing on the edges of my other paid writing work, and I felt lucky. One by one I was harvesting a windfall of autumn fruit, and it was slowly piling up into baskets.

Not all of it was beautiful; some had worm holes right through them, others had grown into odd-looking shapes. But it was all there, mostly edible, piled up around me. And I felt at that moment confronted with a choice: do I simply let it sit here, and risk the chance of it going rancid? Or do I take the risk to give it away?

There is an inherent tension in art – and I’ll speak particularly to writing since it is what I know best. Continue reading →

Introducing the Pilgrimage Poetry Project!

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I’ve been covertly writing poetry all my life, but lately it has become an important spiritual practice for me. I call it the Practice of Paying Attention. Not only has this practice been incredibly healing, but it’s awakening a part of myself I’ve always been a bit reluctant to share with the world – the part of me that delights in beauty and mystery.

The poet Paul Murray speaks of the moment as “the place of pilgrimage to which I am a pilgrim.”  When I think about how I want to live my life, the word that always comes to mind is as a pilgrim, in the most ancient sense of the word.

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To live as a pilgrim is to live simply, purposefully, and expectantly. To have a clear destination in mind, but to take what comes day by day. It is cultivating the art of paying attention to the fullness of the life around us.

Every moment is transparent with possibility. Each person we meet is a fellow-traveler with a story to tell. The question is: Can we remain open to being changed?

The more I’ve thought about what I wanted this 28th year of my life to be about, the more I keep coming back to this. And so, I’m taking a deep breath and “going scared” and inviting you to journey along with me. I’m calling it the Pilgrimage Poetry Project. For the next year I’ll be writing poetry following the ancient Church calendar and seeking to find God in the moments of every day. Afterwards, I plan to publish a small collection of poetry and art (eek!). It would be a delight to have you journey with me on Instagram, Facebook, and right here.

PPPLogoOriginally I thought I should wait and begin the project at Advent, the official beginning of the Church calendar. But then I thought – if this is all about finding God in the ordinary, then what better time to begin than Ordinary Time?

In that vein, I’d like to begin by sharing my first poem with you. My hope and prayer is that this project will help us all to practice the art of paying attention to our lives and find God present there.

Ordinary Time (3)

 

 

 

 

 

The Creativity of Relationship

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I find humanity a lovely, fascinating, complicated and sometimes frustrating thing.

I know you feel the same. I hear it in our laughter together over ridiculous viral videos, our confusion over a global crisis, and the love and loyalty we carry deep inside.

I hear it in words of loss, pain, and mourning; squeals of happiness or the silent smiles of deep joy. We all share this collective joy and pain of living. We all know what it’s like to be loved, and we know what it’s like to be lonely.

All my life I’ve felt what you might call the tug of the artist–the desire to be creating, inspiring, and making beauty. Only recently did it burst into my mind with sudden clarity–how every relationship is, in essence, an act of creativity. Taking two people who are completely unique and forming a relationship that has never existed exactly like this before. Continue reading →