When your dad drops you off at school this morning and reminds you that he has signed you up for the cross-country team, you wonder how you got roped into this one.

One of my earliest memories of coming to terms with mortality was when I was a child, just shy of seven years old.

A rocking chair can serenade anyone, not just the very young and old

Some time ago, I went to a reading by an excellent Midwestern poet. 

It was summer; and there was a patchiness to the weather.

On our walk through town, my husband and I passed by an assisted living facility. There were a couple dump trucks in front. 

A gruff man groans, his pain

because: i wanted cool shoes  

Somewhere in a hotel gym, a mother is running on a treadmill. Her sneakers haven’t touched pavement in months, and her taupe leggings make her thighs look like seals.

Spring in our county brings wind. Early in the morning, a light breeze lifts leaves on the trees, in and around the back patio.

At night, the walkway by my window was lit by orange lights.

A chance discovery of an artistic Soviet Ukrainian family’s portfolio prompts curator Myroslava Hartmond to reappraise the importance of life’s small kindnesses.

When I see the three positive pregnancy tests lined up on my bathroom counter, my first thought is that I wanted another baby, but I did not want another baby like this.

The mind plays tricks on us. This we know. The heart is deceitful above all things. This we accept. But the body is the consummate con artist.

... in In this poem, the body asks to be over-feeling. 

Hated body, hated self. Therefore, body equals self.

What does it mean to make your body a home when all it has ever known is the loud incessant chatter of rooms too full of thoughts so mean, you’d only dare say them to yourself?

In 1330, five days after he killed his wife, Geoffrey of Knuston of Abingdon sought sanctuary in a church in Northamptonshire.

A flock of gulls rises from a choppy sea, hangs aloft in abeyance – a distraction

To be alive means to be in relation...

Dew clings to leaves and calms the dust, soothing wild asters tangled in goldenrod.

Amanda Held Opelt is a songwriter, speaker, and writer based in Boone, North Carolina. Her work stands at the intersection of faith, grief, healing, creativity, and belonging.

I used to think that my hometown would always feel welcoming, that I would always be able to slide back into place. I plotted my return for many years.

It takes 650 steps to walk the perimeter. 

The stars were dancing on the waters as I looked out from Stella Maris chapel.

It is common to intellectualize the sacrament of Communion, and to view the practice as a sacred ritual of reverence. 

Some things never change. I love that.

I am one of two hundred teenage girls walking through the Ozark green on a muggy July evening.

What is “sanctuary”? To me, sanctuary is a refuge, a retreat from the noise and myriad voices competing for our attention.

I learnt of loss and how it attaches itself to your body

On a sweltering August afternoon when only a man deranged would return to Savannah, I wheel up.

How can I explain the joy that I get from reading? Words can't fully express it.

The shack’s one room is wallpapered with pages of the Denver Post, a decorative soul.

on the page we grew like dusk falling, something breathtaking, impossibly ravishing

Last weekend felt like coming home. 

Fire, 20 miles south, 30% contained.

“Who else is on the reservation?” asks the assistant naturalist, who appears to be around the same age as me, as she finds my name on the registration list for a bird talk.

Low-water years, our pond is Walden-size, just right...

Théo has lived and worked in this forest, Madagascar’s Parc National Ranomafana, his entire  life.

I was swimming alone late one September afternoon at Great Pond in Wellfleet when...

I go there again and again, never tiring of the place. When I’m away, I imagine that it waits for me, no matter how long my return might take.

Sunday, a day early, but those murderous temperatures, and we’d had our gators if not our dolphins, our tidal marsh kayak if not our sunset river cruise, decent meals if never a feast...

I don’t want to worry. But I do. I want to lay my burdens down and find rest. But I don’t. My mind interferes.

Came on my bike, hot in the August sun and beaten down by what life had been dolloping out to me.

laid out in the tiny details...

I arrived at Nrityagram dance village in Karnataka, India in July of 2014 with the monsoon rain.

Gardenias droop in August heat at the Episcopal plot

Earlier this morning, he called his parents with the bad news. He had just learned he has Covid-19.