I use words to help people get connected to their own gifts, passion, and purpose.
This is where I walk barefoot through my life, finding God present. It is personal and honest. I write about hope, grief, healing, parenting, family life, friendship, and the quiet ways grace keeps showing up in ordinary days.
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On being barefoot...
Before the burning bush, God asks Moses to take off his sandals, to notice and reverence that he walks on holy land. This holy land continues to burn before me, before us, signaling God’s presence before we arrived rather than because we did. This life we are living was holy before we existed in it. This land and creation we call home is the first book of revelation, God’s love letter to us, bearing witness to the Creator of it all.
Our lives and the moments that make them up are the stuff of sainthood, our invitations to participate in Divine life to be swallowed up and fulfilled by God. At the grocery store, in the false solitude of our cars and commutes, in our laundry rooms, and over text messages.
My shoes run the risk of “protecting” me from the sacredness of this naked moment. And how I love shoes, and how my sensitive toes resist the prickles of grass and the mess of sand. But barefoot is how my spirituality works, daring to live an embodied and earthy love of Jesus who took on flesh. I’m wandering through this life, yearning to let go of my shoes, to walk reverently and with deep attention to what passes under my feet and to what isn’t yet my path.
Barefoot is how I write, how I speak, how I work. Experience shored up against an insatiable thirst for knowledge; direct honesty honed by sensitivity; and vulnerability chained to a commitment to competency. And an unapologetically barefoot tendency to speak it as I feel it, which leads me to…
& preaching...
I’m a preacher without a pulpit, with words that burn until they are spoken ~ aloud or on a page.
My ministry is one of colliding words and ideas, reaching out to find a connection with God’s amazing people.
The world seems to me to be spilling over with grace and we seem to be people who, all too quickly forget that all of this is pure gift.
When I’m driving, eating, visiting, resting, cleaning, working, playing, and almost everything else, I’m frequently stunned by the pure miracle of what simply is.
It’s not all promised joy and ease, but it is all presenced and remembered by the One who gives it. And I can’t stop talking about it, proclaiming it, preaching this good news that we have not been forgotten or forsaken in any moment of this life.
For reasons I don’t quite understand, my words seem to be given to encourage and inspire. In a world where women and girls are still too-often silenced or secondary, I’m barefoot and preaching because my soul won’t rest any other way. If my words can be a gift to you, then that is a gift for me.
Read more from Barefoot & Preaching
Barefoot & Preaching is a syndicated monthly column in The Catholic Register.
Flowing grace: Responding to the call with gentleness
After a major trauma, it has been my experience that human capacity for intentional progress on goals is diminished. My therapists reminded me constantly that healing is rarely linear, and though we participate in it, we respond to life in healing ways rather than direct our own healing. I dislike this. And still, I have found it to be true. Healing is a flow of grace that comes from beyond me.
Soft, a still more excellent way...
Harden not my heart.Or my spirit.Lead me to a still more excellent way.Soften me to a strengththat goes well beyondmy own.
The cost of (my) comfort
I was reflecting on this shift with one of our new Indigenous members. I said that things were uncomfortable for some. And she said, with the characteristic honesty that I have come to love deeply, “Welcome to what it feels like for me all the time.”
Holding tension with the God who waits…
When I sit under the stars, I feel my relative smallness in the universe and a simultaneous gratitude that God saw fit to have a place for me in it. I feel called to step into this massive work of creation and place my tiny hands in God’s eternal hands and hold the tension alongside the Spirit.
Undone & Remade: Three Years & a Lifetime Ever After
The thing is, there is no happily ever after. There is only ever happy moments, gifts for receiving in the midst of whatever is right now. I am undone fairly often when the illusion of happily ever after falls apart – again.
When the light shifts: sitting here alone with you…
I am convinced there is no moving on from the wounds that break our hearts; there are only shifts.
Being here and waiting with the heart of God
When I posted about being here on social media, a friend posted in response: Hearts are so so much bigger than places. He is so right. My heart could sort through back packs and listen to competing stories over pizza, let an ordination live stream in the background and facetime with Dad. I felt connected to all the people and deeply satisfied with being here in one.
Joy is actually dangerous, and I need to do it anyway
. To be honest, I am better at repenting (and the accompanying self-criticism) than I am at rejoicing. Besides, doesn’t everybody know that joy is dangerous?
Hair and holy Saturday and the hole in my heart...
Two long years have passed since Abbie’s death, and I might believe it was yesterday if five inches of hair hadn’t grown since then. Last year, I was in shock that we had all survived a year without her. The second year has been harder still, facing the permanence of lifetime of her absence.
Harden not your hearts: softening as God’s way and maybe mine
My heart gets hardened in a thousand tiny ways, each almost imperceptible in ordinary moments. Softness comes from the same small and abundant moments. Softening, I am coming to believe, is a much more difficult way.
Keynotes Speaker & Retreats for
Real-Life Growth
Whether you’re looking for a keynote speaker, a breakout facilitator or retreat, I’ve got you covered. I love to work with your theme and needs to deliver an inspiring message that will leave you feeling encouraged and empowered to be powerful agents of compassion and change in the world.
You’ll find sample session options below. If you’re seeking something specific, reach out and we can shape a custom talk that fits your community perfectly.
Carrying the Weight of our World with Compassion
Looking for – and Being – the Helpers
I Changed My Mind, & It Changed My World