“We wake, if we ever wake at all, to mystery, rumors of death, beauty, violence…” Annie Dillard
I didn’t learn about the latest horror in my city until I saw my 7-year-old friend crying at church and I didn’t know why. After I attempted to wrap my mind around what had happened, I wondered why all of us weren’t sobbing. Are we asleep? Is this a dream?
I hear and read about anger and blame, hopelessness. I understand it. I also understand the grab toward anaesthesia. But.
“Gentlemen of the city, what surprises you? That there is suffering here or that I know it?” Annie Dillard again.
I go back to pulling out the garden hose and watering things, pulling weeds up by the roots.
Scenes of Shreveport flash through my mind like an old reel to reel home movie- the layers upon layers of light showcasing goodness aplenty that I’ve seen through my viewfinder- and I decide to double down on my efforts to love my city.
We can continue to control what we can control which is to say we can control how fiercely we hold hope with all that we see, say, and do. We can lament. We can pray for the families whose names we read in the national news of all places. We can continue to live well with a stockpile of songs of praise, ready to go at all times and in all circumstances. These melodies are our weapons. And our enemy may not be what it seems. It’s certainly not our neighbors.
Lord, have mercy.
“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” Psalm 150:6
March 2026 highlights, lowlights notwithstanding
📬 Last slide is my new analog creative outlet, page one of four of The Light Post. If you'd like to receive one in your actual, snail mail mailbox, send me a dm and I'll get one to you! It's a bit of levity you can hold in your hands. Because like in Andrew Peterson's sonnet, my part is "to sing out in the darksome wood / For its King is here, and the King is good."
These teenage American alley cats in Hungary connected with a high school full of beautiful Roma kids at a star themed party inspired by the star the Magi followed- our FBC team's themed English lessons about directions matched up with John 14:6 - don't you just love a good theme?- it all added up to a really sparkly time- I'm jet lagged and it was all too great to explain coherently- just trust. Hungary 2026 was tremendous. Traveling with your kid and your church family to love and serve and spread Good News- I highly recommend it. ✨🇭🇺🤌
I forget and then I come back around to it again- this Annie Dillard phrase that I've tried to hold onto since the beginning of the year: "choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will." To me, that means that whatever is in front of me, that's what I'm choosing, accepting, giving thanks for, staring at, wondering about, investigating. Not something else over there that I don't have. Just what's right here.
I forgot about it last week when the forecast was for freezing rain and not snow this weekend. I love snow and Lord knows I don't see it very often. But then I remembered- choose the given- so I came back around again. Turns out, all the different types of frozen water were just lovely and it was all plenty to look at, to wonder about.
Just today, I went on two walks, saw several friends on the way, cleaned out my laundry room, and poured bowls of hot gumbo for some outstanding young men after meeting them at Thrill Hill for sledding. One of them left a pair of gloves on the dining room table and even that I find so charming. I choose it. I definitely and gratefully choose it.
When they were little, I'd take the kids on little local adventures, so I brought the practice back over Christmas break and took my college kids to Caddo Lake for a boat ride. The glassy water reflected an upside down world (iykyk) and my thoughts collected around Gen Z and their growing awareness of ultimate reality- both the glory and the dangers. They're growing wise to what they're up against. Look out.
