“Basketball is a Holy Way to Grow Old”

Last summer when my family was in New Mexico, we discovered a poem entitled “Basketball is a Holy Way to Grow Old” in the obituary of a poet and community activist. Those words have followed me ever since I heard them, but it’s taken me a while to figure out what to do with them. …

A Love Letter (& a Goodbye) to the Carolina (& the Love Stories) that Defined My Life

When I was nine days old, my family moved from southern New Mexico to the foothills of South Carolina. Despite having lived here just eight days shy of my whole life, it’s never felt quite right to call South Carolina home. My family’s history isn’t deeply rooted in this place, and I never wanted my…

A Lament for Abortion Rights

My impulse in the wake of shattering news that happens on a scale much bigger than my own life is usually to be silent. My voice is so often not the voice that matters in those moments. Because of that, I’ve been writing an innocuous essay about two families I adore, the one I was…

Walking With

Hey, friends! I hope the world is still finding ways to be kind to you in the midst of all that’s changing and all that isn’t.  I found out a few weeks ago that I was accepted to the Master of Divinity program at Princeton Theological Seminary. I hope to enter a joint program in…

With the Full Force of My Heart

Hey, friends! At the end of January, I found out nearly a week after the fact that one of the teenage girls (I’ll call her K) I had the absolute joy of knowing from all my summers interning at a children’s home took her own life. It was my second Friday at my new job;…

From the Middle

Hey, friends! When I think about all that 2020 has been, I try my best not to get too caught up in all that 2020 has been to me. My story has always been only a tiny part of a much bigger narrative that connects the lives of every single one of us. I know that…

Showing Up

Hey, friends! When I was in high school, I got to know two football players who radically changed everything I knew about friendship. Before them, my friendships were largely defined by similarity and accountability. I was friends with people who behaved like I did—the kind of people who always did their homework and went to…

To Do with Our Lives What We Can’t with Our Words

Hey, friends! I hope you’ve been finding the good & finding ways to believe that what has always mattered still matters so very deeply. Lately, I do a lot of sitting down to write only to find that I don’t know what to say. I keep thinking that I’ll find the words, that I’ll go…

Loving Tightly

On Monday, I’m going to finish the last assignment of my undergraduate career. I don’t really have much of a plan for what comes next, but I’m finding that I’m surprisingly okay with that. Almost none of the way that my college life worked out was part of my plan. I thought I wanted something…

You Can Always Sit with Us: Do This in Remembrance of Me

Hey, friends! I hope this week has brought you something good, even though the world has become so very different. I love Holy Week, and I miss getting to experience it in different places with different people—in the chapel on my college campus, in my tiny apartment kitchen. Maundy Thursday is one of my all-time…