In a way, this approach to 40 reflects a new approach I hope to take toward myself: Let what comes come. I have a tendency to be too hard on myself when I don’t accomplish items on the arbitrary checklists that exist only in my brain, to feel bad about myself when I learn of friends’ successes and achievements, regardless of whether I have any desire to do the things that they have done. My hope for year 40 is that I learn to give myself a break.
by Kathryn Smith First, Marion insists I take her peaches. A few weeks later, the pears start falling, and Meredith and Blake hand me bags of them over the back fence. Then, from the corner of the backyard, enough plums overhang that I could never imagine needing a tree of my own. Such is late … Continue reading You Are 60 Percent Fruit Fly
by Kathryn Smith Beneath my patio, a silent upheaval. Silent to me, though the ants hear it in their own way, a vibration humming their legs, a pheromone alert in their antennae. The signals they give are clear: The colony has outgrown itself. A colony cannot serve two queens. The colony must divide. They … Continue reading Learning From the Ants
We ask our contributing authors to consider the role of faith in their work, or in the pieces in our issue. It adds some depth to what is often just of list of accomplishments that lacks any real sense of who wrote a particular poem or essay or story. Here’s a selection of what our … Continue reading Contributor Notes: 8.2
We ask our contributing authors to consider the role of faith in their work, or in the pieces in our issue. It adds some depth to what is often just of list of accomplishments that lacks any real sense of who wrote a particular poem or essay or story. Here's a selection of what our … Continue reading Contributor Notes: 8.1
by Kathryn Smith “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. As soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near.” Luke 21:29-30 Look at the fig tree: An ancient genus, Ficus is one of the oldest known cultivated food sources. Fossilized figs have been found … Continue reading Overthinking the parables: the fig tree
Kathryn Smith Ours is a God who lives in every sort of dwelling, with every sort of person, whether we live in a house or a tent or no place at all. In the Old Testament lesson, God chooses the humble dwelling place—the tent rather than the cedar house. Similarly, God chooses the humble person, … Continue reading Advent Four
Kathryn Smith There are plenty of places in our West Central neighborhood for Isaiah’s prophecy to take hold. Who are the captives? What devastations – “the devastations of many generations” – surround us? And what is our role in the transformation? I see it in efforts like Project HOPE and Riverfront Farms. After all, someone … Continue reading Advent Three
Kathryn Smith What does it mean, in the year 2011, in an urban setting, to prepare the way of the Lord? What if a neighbor’s howling dog is a messenger, the voice crying out of which Isaiah speaks? Or perhaps we’re the messengers, the ones to bring comfort. This poem allows those possibilities as it … Continue reading Advent Two
Rock & Sling 