Cheasty Greenspace: A Place of Goodness and Grace
The detective called inquiring after whether or not we had found "anything" in the woods since the fatal shooting that occurred near Cheasty Greenspace/Mt.View on February 4, 2013. While we have certainly unearthed some curious, and somewhat disturbing, artifacts during our forest restoration work parties (lined up pairs of shoes next to an axe, dismembered dolls, rosaries, and large singular bones to name a few), no, we had not found the weapon involved in this fatal incident.
Lenten Walk Series 3
Walking through the streets of Seattle's New Rainier Vista neighborhood can seem somewhat like a maze. If you don't keep your bearings on Mt. Rainier (easy to lose for non-natives on a cloudy day), you can effortlessly get turned about. As we walked along the sidewalks of this redevelopment, the children picked up garbage; it seemed the only familiar act in which to respond to the ever-present litter lined up along some of these unfamiliar lanes.
Cookie Love
The amazing, magical thing that always happened-whether I was sad, depressed, lonely, dejected, or vulnerable-was that this process of baking cookies and giving them away truly sorted me out! I could be in the most dispirited of states and as the baking ritual commenced, I could feel myself lifting. My mind would initially focus on the chemistry of the cookie (1 tsp baking soda, 1 cup sugar, 4 cups flour...) and then center on the recipient. My thoughts were no longer wallowing in self-proclaimed pity, they were reaching out to someone else, and to another's story, who needed an extra dose of sweetness in their given season. The cookies created a shared moment that acknowledged another and put life back in perspective.
Living in Fear
We all live in fear to some extent or another. There is a spectrum of this emotional response and absolutely, there are situations and contexts that warrant this self-preserving stance. If we were to do a broad-stroke generalization though, what is the typical object of this fear? I daresay that the average common characteristic of these fiends is difference