P&S Apr 2022 GIFT

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Elrena Evans

Welcome to the April issue of Paper&String!

I

n college, I wrote a poem about going to the Holy Land to find God. I’d just returned from a trip to Israel, where I’d anticipated that walking in the places Christ walked would reveal God to me in new and deeper ways. But in the poem, I wrote about the night I spent not far from the Sea of Galilee – how empty I felt, how whatever I’d been looking for just wasn’t there.

In the poem, I wrote, I want to leave this place. I want to go back to Ocean City, New Jersey. I want to go back because God met me there, alongside the kitchy shops of the boardwalk, beneath the flashing lights of the ferris wheel, with the smell of Mack & Mancos pizza fighting the sweet rot of overstuffed, sun-baked trash cans.

God was not where I thought he would be. I traveled halfway around the world to be close to God, only to discover that God could meet me in an unexpected place, so much closer to home.

I’ve continued to meet God in places that might seem unlikely. In dance studios and therapists’ offices, at amusement parks and BronyCon. In the smile of a hotel receptionist who took one look at me and knew I needed to be cared for. In the challenges of raising a child with special needs.

We’re writing about Faith Outside the Lines this month, in Paper&String. The unexpected places where we encounter God, in food and nature and the whine of a dentist drill.

Where does God meet you?

Where do you meet God?

Do you find God in the wilderness? Tammy Perlmutter writes, “Wildernesses abound and we all find ourselves in one sooner or later. At times it feels like forty years of punishment, but what is essential to remember is that God speaks in the wilderness and transformation is born there.”

And Tonya Salomons writes, “I can place a pin on that moment in the timeline of life and say with certainty: this is where I finally believed God loves me exactly the way He created me to be.”

May we all feel that certainty in our lives, both inside and outside the lines: that God loves us exactly the way we were created to be, today and always.

Abundance in the Wilderness

by Tammy Perlmutter

M

y first experience of the wild outdoors was when I was 4. I took to the ocean like a selkie and various family members were tasked with keeping me alive. I would race up and down the shore, getting lost among blankets, umbrellas, and millions of kids my size. The only distinguishing feature was my platinum blonde mullet.

My family tired of having to form search parties to locate me, so they bought me a fluorescent green bikini and told me to go to the lifeguard stand if I couldn’t find them. The lifeguard would pick me up, wave me around, and keep whistling until someone came to claim me.

I was so distracted by wonder, and fearless in nature (pun intended) that I lost track of time and people while I was discovering starfish, mermaid’s purses, horseshoe crabs, and sand bugs (those little mole crabs that dig into the sand in the swash zone). My legs were covered with abrasions from jetty rocks, cuts from razor-sharp sand reeds, and red blotches from jellyfish stings.

I was born in Philadelphia and spent the first four years of my life surrounded by brick, steel, and glass. There was an occasional green space, like Needle Park, so named due to the amount of drugs that were bought and sold and the cast-off paraphernalia you would find littering the ground.

For a time we lived in impoverished Fishtown, near the Delaware River, which reeked from the Jack Frost Sugar Refinery and the Kissling Sauerkraut factory. One of my favorite pastimes was going into my neighbor’s yard and “fishing” in their above-ground pool. The oily water was thick, brown, and noxious with algae blooms floating on top. My friends and I would grab a stick, swat at the mosquitos that lived there, and poke around in the sludge to see what we could find. There were bicycle tires, clothing, and broken toys; one family’s detritus became our sodden treasure.

I was that creature C. S. Lewis described as “an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

I loved the rumble and screech of the city because I had nothing to compare it with. I had never heard the waves lapping at the shore or the rain falling on leaves. I learned to be content with little and less because I had never experienced abundance.

I had a holiday at the sea because I was removed from my home and placed in foster care after I was abandoned by my mother. The beach was the place I felt the most alive, where wonder and awe sparked inside me, eclipsing the anxiety and grief.

Later, since I was an inner-city poor kid and a ward of the state, I was eligible for free registration to a Christian summer camp and found myself thriving; unraveling like a fiddlehead fern in the pine woods of the Pocono Mountains.

Every day we would have group devotions in the Chapel of the Woods, then split off by ourselves for our quiet times. I sat in the breezy stillness and swish of the tree branches and felt my body slowly diffusing; a time bomb detached from its detonator. The crushing weight of bad grades, misbehavior, shame, abuse, humiliation, and loneliness fell away from me and I entered into the presence of God in a way I never thought possible. Outside the woods

I was bereft, a hopeless case, but inside the woods I felt loved in the deepest, darkest places of my soul.

Apart from the two years I had at summer camp and weekends in the summer before I turned 18 I didn’t have many opportunities throughout my life to spend outside.

The enchantment I experienced slipped from memory in the wake of deadlines, demands, and expectations. The anxiety slipped back in and lodged in my ribcage.

I didn’t have a child till I was 30. Phoenix was a firebrand of a girl, diagnosed with Autism Spectrum disorder at three. She was driven by an invisible motor, progressing from crawling to running, needing more sensory input than was humanly possible to provide.

She was a storm, this tiny child. She brought with her high winds of energy, random property destruction, the stinging, blinding, unrelenting rain of tantrums, floods of emotion: resistance, refusal, rage. No indoor space could contain that much frenetic animation; she was happiest outside.

We lived blocks away from the Wissahickon Valley, a deep gorge created by tectonic forces millions of years ago, banked by towering primordial forest. It became obvious that hiking the steep trails and wading in the creek, trailing silvery, sparkling scales of mica, calmed Phoenix more than anything else. She was in her element and I rediscovered mine.

The only place I felt a shimmer of hope was in this ancient vista, a wilderness that mirrored my own, when I was desperate to escape the throbbing ache of despair. The atmosphere

changed when I took refuge under the canopy of branches. Sounds faded away, the air was cooler, crisper, and lighter; my lungs swelled instead of crumpling and compressing like they did everywhere else. The expansiveness of the landscape and transcendent beauty ignited my synapses and it felt like the circuits of my brain were resuscitated.

Unlike at camp where I felt like God showed up, this time I knew that it was me who showed up. I was able to shed my detachment and engage with “he who made the Pleiades and Orion and changes deep darkness into morning” (Amos 5:8). This wasn’t just an experience, it was a visceral encounter. It was the pulse of a promise.

Even in the terrifying absence of control and power, there was one who had the control and the power and he loved Phoenix and he loved

me and he loved our family. He is the God who provides “water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:20b).

Wildernesses abound and we all find ourselves in one sooner or later. At times it feels like forty years of punishment, but what is essential to remember is that God speaks in the wilderness and transformation is born there.

I’ve prayed with the same desperation David had for most of my life. I’ve prayed David’s very words when my own were faltering and insufficient. God’s assurance of healing and happiness in his Word often left me cold, but I stumbled upon a different kind of promise. Sometimes it was referred to as a broad place, or a wide and spacious place.

In Scripture this spacious place is synonymous with rescue and deliverance, with provision and abundance. The space that has been created is wide open for all kinds of good things to fall into. The expansiveness of nature was my spacious place, my blueprint for healing.

We’re led to believe that all healing and wellness is going to feel great at first, that we’ll know it’s happening by the warm fuzzies and exhilaration.

The truth is, healing can be wildly uncomfortable. Wounds can feel worse when they’re getting better. Stitches itch. Fusing bones throb. Broken hearts beat with pain. Just because there’s still some lingering pain doesn’t mean healing isn’t happening.

Sometimes it has a learning curve.

It may be long in coming, but God is not.

Stay close to the ache. Breathe through it. Be present. Your spacious place will find you, too.

Tammy Perlmutter is a writer and the editor, founder, and curator of The Mudroom, a collaborative blog for women, and co-founder of Deeply Rooted, an annual faith and creativity gathering for women.

Tammy is a member of the Redbud Writers Guild, an amateur naturalist, a Chicago Conservation Corps Sustainability leader, and a founding member of an urban sustainability initiative. She has a poem included in Everbloom: Stories of Deeply Rooted and Transformed Lives and Love Poems Deconstructed, and an essay in Soul Bare: Stories of Redemption. She is the author of the poetry chapbook To Walk in Rivers of Fire.

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I’ve spent years raving to friends about the books, shows, and films I love and why. They don’t have to be recent to catch my eye.

They only have to be a new way to see the old, old story of light vs. dark.

This never fails to move me.

While not every review will be for every person, my hope is that these move you too.

Death Comes to Pemberley Available: On PBS Masterpiece via Amazon (or other BBC service provider) Rating: TV-14 Starring: Matthew Rhys, Anna Maxwell Martin, Matthew Goode What You Need To Know: Elizabeth and Darcy, now six years married, are preparing for their annual ball when festivities are brought to an abrupt halt by a murder that, naturally, has Wickham at the center. This three episode series is an adaptation of PD James’s homage to Pride and Prejudice, and it is a delightful second course to all of us who crave more Jane Austen in our lives and on our TVs!

Diving In: I’m always curious about what happens after the last page of a novel. And I’m never satisfied, no matter how delicious the last line. I want to be able to keep visiting my favorite characters-turned-friends, I want to see how they’re faring and how married life turned out for them after all. This series is exactly that.

It is the highest form of fan fiction, since it was penned by the beloved English novelist PD James, famous for her detective series, but still gives us fans what we want: more Lizzy and Darcy. And so it allows us to drop back into the lives of two of literature’s favorite characters to see if their love story, that was

always equal parts intellectual attraction and fiery sparring, has settled into a satisfying simmer or bubbled over or burned out.

At the opening of the series we find our beloved Lizzy and Darcy exactly as we hope–ensconced at Pemberley where Lizzy has brought laughter, a son, friendship and tenderness to the grand hall. Georgiana is all grown up and we see her mentally modeling her own future love story on her brother and sister-in-law. Naturally, Wickham will have to be the fly in this particularly cozy honeypot. And once again, the story spins a web of discord outwards around Wickham, and the couple we’ve rooted for for so long begins to get out of step with one another. It was both unsettling and comforting in that way where we like to know that we’re not the only ones who have felt the bumps of melding two lives into one.

But this go-around we are led by Lizzy-the grown up, infinitely less prone to jumping to conclusions and yet still just as patient with

the just-as-frustrating Lydia. New characters have joined the story, Pemberley becomes the back drop for a murder investigation, and will Darcy actually doubt Lizzy, when his reputation and pride are back at stake?

“Jane Austen gave Darcy and Lizzy a happily ever after. P.D. James will take it all away.”

Here is the coziest of mysteries for those nights when it feels like spring may never arrive and instead of being frustrated, we can sink into the sofa with a hot cup of tea and a Pemberley happy ending, take two. Is there anything as comforting as being reunited with long lost friends? Maybe only this honest and tender look at a real-life marriage between our favorite fictional couple.

To download this printable page, click here!

Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

with ANNA GRIST

Seeing the Forest For The Trees

I

’ve noticed this past month that where I get most frustrated with humanity around me and the nature within me has consistently been a belief in “the end justifies the means.”

The problems that arise when we think that we can bypass love, joy, peace, kindness or any other expression of the Holy Spirit in order to fulfil some self-appointed task or agenda or goal are hurtful and devastating.

If I approached hiking like this, setting off without preparation, ignoring trails and signs, never appreciating or treating with respect the nature around me in my rush to get to the end of the trail and finish my walk, I assure you I could not then appreciate the goal, either.

Rushing and cutting corners would negate the very reason for stepping out my front door into nature. Why then would I think taking that approach to a problem or goal in my wider life would accomplish anything better?

I’ve recently resumed adding yoga into my day, to help me slow down, listen to my body, and engage it in what my therapist calls “bottom up” therapy, the kind that subconsciously harmonizes my body with my mind and soul.

The very point is that the means are the end goal. I can’t rush to check off a list or the list ceases to exist, as the first and consistent item on it is to be present, to focus on the movement or position I’m in, not the next one or watch the clock.

Looking at those who would seek to control others’ lives and choices, even if the goal would be a supposed moral or spiritual good, I see where there is constantly compromise, anger, fear, and a refusal to trust that the Holy Spirit will convict or even just guide.

An unwillingness to entertain the idea that maybe they aren’t completely right in their interpretation or application of an idea, and are willing to go to any lengths to squish everyone around them into the same conclusions or actions.

The Bible clearly says that this kind of behaviour is antithetical to the gospel, which invites people to respond to God out of an actual desire and personal realization of need for Him, and to seek and obey through listening to the Spirit speak, not through a dread of God or desire to please others.

A near enemy of true community and unity is forced, legalistic adherence to an expected role or action, instead of a gentle journey with Jesus to let Him slowly reveal His will for the individual and their place in the group or place He’s put them.

This can’t be forced or decided by a leader or law, and we don’t all learn the same lessons in the same order. The “goal” is never perfection, the goal is always just one next step in the right direction.

Our role is to gently walk. To prepare for our days thoughtfully. To pay attention to the path, to roadsigns, to guides that we encounter. To have the right map. To have an open heart and a curious mind, and willing feet and hands. Taking one step at a time, letting God orchestrate the end without us forcing or rushing. To hold expectations lightly, being willing to pivot with a loose grip on our destinations.

May we hold our ideals and goals lightly: as tools, not idols. To see perfect love as the filter through which any other aim needs to be judged.

May we be people who seek first God, and can stop and be still and listen at any step.

Poetry: The Unexpected

by Jonna Fantz

You will look for God in books stacked like autumn leaves full of mossy wisdom, but God will pour down in spring rain tears that you didn’t want to cry.

You will listen for God in straight rows and square brown pulpits carpeted to silence, but God will sing in children’s laughter in old women coughing and in the rustle of wrapping paper.

You will call God into your service with words of commandments and Psalms recited like favorite recipes, but God will come in parking lots grocery stores and traffic jams.

You will study God with folded hands bent knees and eyes closed tight your lips barely moving, but God will appear in your mailbox dishwater bubbles and cups of coffee.

You will search, study and call to this limitless God only to discover yourself found, known and spoken to.

So when you are lame and can’t walk anymore When you are dumb and words grit like sand in your mouth When you are broken into dangerous shards Then God will grab your hand and pull you dancing tripping screaming until you can’t catch your breath and out of control you fall more deeply than all emptiness and loss in love again.

Click on the video image OR here to enjoy a reading of Jonna’s poem!

Playlist: Practice Resurrection

By Christie Purifoy

“S

o, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it.”

- Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Click here to listen to the Spotify playlist!

From time to time, in the Black Barn Online, we host retreats that help us enter the current season of the church year with more intention.

This month, our Paper&String contributor and gifted Black Barn Table Host, Troy Cady, will guide us through Holy Week with a Holy Week Retreat in the Black Barn Online.

We offer this playlist on the opposite page as a gift to you and as a sample of the restful, intentional offerings you will find in the Black Barn Online Holy Week Retreat.

We promise to send you an invitation, and we would be honored to see you there!

For now, enjoy this playlist. May it lead you toward the promise of resurrection and the Easter season!

In Our Earbuds: For the Life of the World

by Jon Carlson

O

ne of the brightest, sharpest, most impermeable lines we draw around faith is politics. Thomas Jefferson’s famous description of “a wall of separation between church and state” was not new in his day.

This seemingly immovable object was the culmination of a lengthy, frequently bloody process of determining what belonged to “religion” and what belonged to “government” from the time of the Reformation on. In the end, it became definition by mutual exclusion: the state claimed whatever was left when religion was excluded, and religion seemed content to do the same.

What happens when we draw outside that line?

Well, sometimes things become catastrophic: violent, repressive theocracies emerge, or religious extremists unleash wave after wave of terror. But not always. Faith on the other side of the line can sometimes be eucatastrophic— creating sudden and surprisingly positive turns of events as new possibilities emerge.

The Yale Center for Faith and Culture’s For the Life of the World podcast explores faith outside the lines built around us. One great episode to start with is theologian Miroslav Volf’s conversation with novelist Marilynne Robinson. It considers what it might mean to bring our faith to our political engagement, beginning with a firm commitment to hold the other sacred. Find it by clicking here or wherever you get your podcasts.

God Whispers from Tonya Salomons

M

y earliest memories of church conjure up images of hard pews, long organ notes and snuggling next to my Oma and the foxfur stole she draped across her shoulders in an effort to ward off the chill of the old brick church. I remember swinging my feet off the edge of the pew until her hand gripped my knee; a silent invitation to stop fidgeting. I also remember the large roll of King Peppermints she would fish out of her purse about half-way through the sermon that seemed to go on for the length of eternity. As much as those early memories of church bring comfort, there was a hardness, a joylessness to my first experience with church that coloured how I understood the love of God. I was in fourth grade when my parents first separated. Divorce was an ugly word back then—and Christian families certainly didn’t entertain such notions as the end of

a marriage. It was hard and it was messy. I remember begging and pleading through every bedtime prayer that God would somehow see fit to put my family back together, and when He didn’t, I carried the weight of shame with me through the most formative years of my life. At some point I had come to believe that God only answered the prayers of people who did good things, and if my family had fallen apart, maybe it was because I didn’t do enough good. Faith had become the idea that I was somehow the author of my own salvation.

Decades later I would find myself sitting in a different kind of church – the tabernacle of His creation. The waves lapped gently at the rocks below me as I watched the Pine River empty into Lake Huron. It was a summer of change.

We had escaped jobs and other commitments for long, lazy days at the cottage. My faith had been challenged in the months preceding our time away. We had left our church of 16 years after experiencing emotional abuse from one of

the pastors. Everything that I thought I knew about the goodness of God was turned upside down and I was preparing to walk away from it all because there was no way I could ever measure up to who I thought God wanted me to be. So why should I try.

There I sat on a blanket, with a book and my Bible in hand. I listened to the wind and the waves. It was there, overlooking the lake, that I was preparing to tell God it was over and I was finished.

I wanted nothing more to do with Him or His so-called love. I opened the book that I had brought to read and after the first few paragraphs something in me broke and the words blurred. Closing my eyes, I turned my face up toward the sky, letting the sun warm me.

To this day I will always remember the question I heard whispered in the wind.

“Do you want to be saved?” I could only manage a whispered “yes” as the tears fell in earnest. The tenderness of the moment broke me in all the places that needed to be broken.

The sky, the waves, the water; it was a turning point for me. I can place a pin on that moment in the timeline of life and say with certainty – this is where I finally believed God loves me exactly the way He created me to be.

Many years after that whispered conversation, whenever we would go to the cottage and before anything else I would walk down to the river. I would sit on that outcropping of rocks rising like some Ebenezer-stone out of the lake and whisper to God that I still wanted to be saved.

My dad sold the cottage several years ago, however the pull of a body of water is still a powerful one, and God still uses the sound of water to soothe the parts of me that ache.

Whether we rent a cottage on a lake or find a picnic spot near a creek or stream, my soul seems to exhale with the wonder of God. Nature is such a wonderful way to experience the presence of God. As the weather warms, why not pack a picnic and head out to the woods or near a stream, and listen for the whisper of God in the wind.

Download the recipe as a letter-size page or a recipe card, just click on the images below!

from Tonya Salomons Ingredients • 6 medium potatoes

• 1 tsp dill

•1/4 tsp celery salt

• 1 tsp sugar

• 1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning • 1/4 - 1/2 cup chopped bread & butter pickles (depending on your preference) • 1/4 cup chopped green onions • 1/4 - 1/2 cup mayonaise • 2-3 tbsp of pickle juice • 1-2 hard boiled eggs (depending on your preference) • 1 Tbsp smoked paprika (you can use sweet paprika but the smoky taste is worth it!)

with CHRISTIE PURIFOY

W

e aren’t simply waiting for resurrection, we are living it. This is true everywhere, in so many ways, but it is especially true in April in my garden. In the garden, resurrection is a predictable miracle. I can point to my calendar and tell you–give or take a few weeks–exactly when this miracle will emerge from the still-cold soil. I can tell you all about the last time it happened, and I can plan for my garden’s future, confident that spring resurrection will once again follow close on the heels of winter sleep and death.

Writer and farmer Wendell Berry famously ends his poem Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front with the charge: “practice resurrection.” It’s a galvanizing cry. Do we believe that death is not the end of the seed but the beginning of new life? Do we believe that the particular resurrection of that first Easter Sunday changed reality in a fundamental way? If so, what are we waiting for? Seeds are growing, children are growing, creativity is welling up inside of us: it’s time to live this resurrection we believe.

And go on living it. Because that’s the thing about ordinary, predictable, life-changing miracles: they are ordinary, predictable, life-changing practices. They aren’t a one-time only happening, they are always happening. They are always inviting us to participate, like stepping into a river and going with the flow of the current and no longer standing on the edge watching life go by without us.

To practice resurrection means living in ways that make resurrection possible. If I don’t save a seed or purchase a seed, if I don’t plant the seed and water the seed, then the seed can’t die. If the seed can’t die, the seed can’t live again. What should I be losing, and letting go, and allowing to die? What dreams should I be tucking in for a long winter’s sleep? And where and what should I be planting with hope and faith? Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden, said “If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” I find that to be one of the most hopeful things I’ve ever heard. Because gardens–and you can take this gardener’s word for it–always come back to life.

Praying Outside The Lines

By Jonna Fantz

O

ur faith in Jesus is meant to set us free. But sometimes the structures of our religious life can stifle or hold us back from all that God might be offering. Maybe the structures, the lines, are a beginning as we grow into this wild and creative relationship that God is beckoning us into. Take some time to let God work on the lines.

Click here or on image above to watch Jonna’s video

Click to download the accompanying PDF which includes:

• Practice Preparation & Materials • An Invitation to Practice

Tell me a story about faith outside the lines...

I

like hiking off trail. This gets me into trouble. Briars, holes, mud, you name it. I once decided to veer through muskeg in the spring and ended up wading thigh deep in a growing dim light with my feet frozen in icy slush because I’d realized turning back was as perilous as forging ahead. Sometimes, though, it works out and I’m rewarded with glorious vistas or hidden nooks of pastoral wonder.

The difference is in wisdom. Knowing what terrain to trust, being sure of my internal compass, and using the tools I have (satellite maps on my phone, previous knowledge of an area) to make decisions instead of making snap judgements.

My faith has included this gentle testing, also.

Of knowing where my circle of comfort ends but my circle of safety is still engaged, and living in that tension. Not taking uncalculated risks, but also not saying no to every opportunity when I can’t know everything will work out yet, just the clarity of the next step.

The turning point in my adult life was picking up and moving our family across the country from Ontario to Alberta on a hunch and a yearning felt over time as I’d visited this place that felt more like home than the soil I’d grown up standing on. It turned out to be exactly

what we needed and craved, and even now, over five years later, God continues to show us just why He needed us here and not there. This step was terrifying, but we were led, and it just took one step at a time, one decision at a time, one piece of information at a time.

The Team!

Christie & Jonathan Purifoy

live at the old farmhouse in Pennsylvania called Maplehurst and built the Black Barn. Christie earned a PhD in English Literature from the University of Chicago before trading the classroom for a picket-fenced garden and an old writing desk. Now she writes books and raises kids and chickens and tends the trees that gave Maplehurst its name.

Lisa-Jo Baker is a

third culture kid, former attorney, reader, writer, and storyteller. Every Wednesday on the Out of the Ordinary Podcast she and Christie explore the surprising ways that cultivating ordinary life leads to extraordinary stories. She is endlessly fascinated by people and how loud her children are.

Elrena Evans first had the dream of

sending you a care package from the Black Barn. She’s a writer, editor, and dancer, a mother of five, an ally and an advocate. A new Paper&String care package every month is her gift from us to you.

Allison Sheeler Duncan studied English

and theology at Eastern University and is now a writer and editor at a university in southeastern Pennsylvania. She enjoys growing flowers and heirloom tomatoes, watching superhero movies, and trying new recipes.

Anna Grist is the western Canadian in our

midst, working on Paper&String from the Rockies near Calgary. She creates all the design and layout and contributes a few illustrations and snippets of writing as well as laughter and well-timed GIFs. She’s a wife and mother to two human children, as well as twins Quill & Ink (pictured).

Amy Knorr is an educator, speaker and

writer who loves to create contemplative spaces in real life and online. She is in a Nonprofit and Spiritual Formation graduate program with a spiritual direction certification.

Amy has shared a nomadic married life with her husband, Dan, for 21 years. She is mom to two girls growing tall and a son she will hold again someday. She enjoys a good laugh, a quiet moment, a furry doggy face, a challenging trail and a cup of hot tea.

Anna Kocher is an artist living and working

in the greater Philadelphia area. She’s an art teacher, a painter, and mother of three. When she’s not teaching, painting, or parenting she can be found reading, tea in hand and Ella Fitzgerald on the record player. She lives in a creaky old house with her husband, her kids, her dog, Mystic, and Edmund the cat.

Tonya Salomons

lives with her husband in Canada’s largest city.

During the day, she works as a registered social worker, but at night and on the weekends the kitchen is where she finds the space to recharge and finds her joy, feeding not only the body but the soul. She admits to reading cookbooks like they are novels while sipping copious cups of coffee and eating chocolate chip cookies.

by Elrena Evans

Holy God, meet us In the space outside the lines.

Where communion is the burger drive-through And ketchup packets squashed on the floor Where the hymns are tinny music Piped over the sound of a dentist drill

Where the pew becomes a park bench As a young man tries to sleep.

Where cathedrals become canopies And dappled green light kisses our shoulders Where the hands of those who love us Move as yours Where the Gospel is preached In ways we cannot understand.

Holy God, meet us In the space outside the lines.

Click here for a printable version of this benediction

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