I'm so pleased to kick off the week with a piece I'm proud of about a place that means a lot to me, even though I haven't been there in nearly eight years.

A couple of weeks ago, my North Carolina friend (and gifted writer) James Hogan asked if I would write something for the quarterly magazine published by his church, Trinity Episcopal in Statesville. Something on faith and "modern" church, he suggested - modern faith observations. Did I have any related ideas or interests?

I spent a couple of days brainstorming, trying to gather scattered thoughts about so many elements of this umbrella topic that seems to matter to me more and more. How could I cover so much ground in just a magazine piece?

Then my heart and mind hit upon Chapel Field.

The gorgeous design from Trinity Episcopal's quarterly magazine, Trinity Topics. Read it here - my essay starts on page 18. — The gorgeous design from Trinity Episcopal's quarterly magazine, *Trinity Topics.* Read it here - my essay starts on page 18.

I found a new church today.

I wrote this in my journal on the last Sunday of September in 2008. I have one in Georgia, one in North Carolina, and now one in England, of all places.

It had taken a conscious effort that morning to pull myself out of bed in my room at the University of East Anglia, eat a handful of dry cereal, and hoof it from my flat on the outskirts of campus to the bus stop at its center. I stood on the empty corner with a city map wadded in my fist, and hopped on the first 35 bus heading toward City Centre.

Still in the first month of my semester abroad, I’d recently attended a gathering of the campus religious life group called The Christian Union. In a meeting room, nearly one hundred students lounged and listened as, one by one, clergy from local Norwich churches made presentations that seemed more like political pitches: Here’s Why You Should Come To Our Church! If my millennial memory serves, some used PowerPoint, others jogged through the crowd to Christian rock, all of them wore blue jeans and gestured wildly.

Must be hard to sell college students on church in any country, I thought. These pastors seemed to hold back nervous stutters behind their wide smiles. They talked up the worship bands, the lights, being saved by the one and only Savior. They promised free transportation from campus into the city on Sunday mornings. The brand of Christianity that I had thought of as so vividly American – raised hands, closed eyes, pop tunes sweetened with nebulous praise – had crossed the ocean. It didn’t appeal to me any more than it did on my home side of the Atlantic.

And so the church where I headed that last Sunday morning in September wasn’t represented under the fluorescent lights that night with The Christian Union. Instead I had stopped by the chaplain’s office, where a ruddy-faced reverend who looked suited to an A.A. Milne story scribbled a name down on a slip of paper and pressed it into my palm. This church didn’t offer free transport from campus, so here I was, stepping off the 35 alone, trying not to look too confused by the map in my hand and the unfamiliar street corner. I was already five minutes late...

Read the rest here, starting on page 18.

Thanks to James and the Trinity Episcopal team for the opportunity to share this story!

P.S. If you're interested, here are links to the reports I reference in the piece:

1) "Churchgoing in the UK" - Tearfund, 2007

2) "Brits Making Mass Exodus from Methodist Church" - CharismaNews (originally Religion News Service), 2014

2002

Hey all! Well, this is my first blog! Hope there will be many more to come. Anyways, the last show was today! I am SO sad and bummed about that. The cast party was awesome. ...I have no school on tomorrow OR Tuesday! Yahoo! Sleep-time. He he. Yawn. This is going to be a great way for me to get my feelings out, since I love to write. I have had so much sugar this week it's not even funny. I probably should have given up chocolate for Lent, but those of you who know me know that I am a chocoholic so that is out of the question pour moi. Time for bed... more later. Love to all!

2003

i feel like i need to get something out, but i don't quite know what. it's a bit like that time last year when i was bored and wanted something exciting to happen, but not really. i don't know. it seems like whenever i wish for something it might happen but not exactly like i want. ok i am blabbering majorly now but hey, i do not care. i should drink camomile and get to bed. but i want to keep writing, keep writing for something, for myself. typing is such a wonderful thing because it is so darn fast and easy for me and it's just plain fun, especially when i know what to write, which i really don't right now. i really feel like i need a kindred spirit but i'm not sure who it is right now. i hope i can be shown who it is very soon. it's not that my best friends aren't kindred spirits, they are, i just don't see them enough because most of them are at church and that is once a week and stuff and sometimes that's just not enough. it's just that... i dunno what i am trying to say anyway. yeeeeesh clairey. calm it down a bit.

2004

oh, excuse me, were you actually wanting me to POST something? whoops. been checkin email here and there. aloha mes amis. ca va? anyway. today is ash wednesday. i believe that i have given up soft drinks, cursing, and pillsbury easy bake cookies. AHHHHH!!! today was a pretty good day. really rainy and chilly, prompting ms. crow to say for the zillionth time in 2 months, "yall, turn on the weather channel!" i love her ever-present optimism but it's NOT GONNA HAPPEN. il ne neige jamais ici. mais c'est la vie dans la soud, non? so SINCE it is ash wednesday, at 5:30 we are going to the church service, then eating dinner, then i am going to go salsa with rae and amy and whoever else takes rae's class at WNS. wish megs could come along but she has volleyball. i don't have TOO much hw... flowers postponed DBQ til monday!! yeeeehaaa. tomorrow is breakfast club, yay. sunday is the oscars!! eeee! and also family gathering. and youth. and choir. eesh, busyness. so i best go do some work if i want to get an early bedtime.. i adore you all til the ends of the earth

2005

only night of the week that is freeeeeeeeee!! nice. and what am i doing? writing this and talking to adrienne, sheridan, and nazia instead of doing homework. hehehe... whoops. sooo highlights--
well the 2 tech rehearsals have gone really well, and i am starting to get excited. i love performing for the crowd, and hopefully all 4 (4!!!!) shows will be sellouts. the musicians have been there and are all wonderful. i think the whole thing will be very effective
tornado drill today, verrry exciting... ha.
hmmm not much else really.
lalalallaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
PREEEEPARE YEEEEEEEE!

2006

Ahh! I love Davidson!!! It's so great. makes me really, really happy. now i just have to get in! hehehe. i was a little surprised at guilford though. i thought it would be better than it was. oh well. we have the week off, i am so happy. it is raining like mad. really foggy on the way home. i am still hacking and clearing my throat. talking to the vinnie gals. lalalala. SASHA COHEN IS WINNING THE SKATING!!! well i mean after the short program. i would love her to win the whole thing. and the little americans too. i am hungry. very hungry. for the rest of the week i want to watch old movies and sleep and write. well, i have to write a paper. oh well. so cross your fingers for *davidson* everyone!

2007

okay, so this is pretty pathetic. i used to write on this thing EVERY DAY, i mean, multiple times a day. i think this is my first post of 2007. yuck. too late, too late. HEY! i even missed the 5-year anniversary of the blog!! it was a couple of days ago! how sad! it is now lent. i thought about giving up chocolate and as of today i have not had any... but i really really really wanted a big soft cookie after dinner. i got tea instead. i have a feeling that i am going to break this like, tomorrow, and have chocolate... i kind of want to see how long i can go without having it but i know i will want to have it and probably have it because honestly i don't think i am doing it for lenten reasons. i think i am doing it for health reasons. BLAH! john sent me the most beautiful photo of glenn along with a note. i am going to print it out and it will remind me that it is lent. i sang at the ash wednesday service with chris and some other people... i enjoyed singing in front of other people again. i got a lot of smiles and congratulations which i enjoyed. then i went to dinner at the union and watched emily and keith spray water on each other and shriek. hahaha. then i read the bio of martin luther for like an hour. it was GORGEOUS today, so so so gorgeous. totally springish. i wish i could have spent more time outside, but i did enough to enjoy it. i also thought about how i think it was a year ago today that i toured davidson. that is so difficult and yet so easy to believe. SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED! jeez.

2008

this is what i would like.
no more college.
a HOME. as in a HOUSE. as in a HOME.
someone that i will spend the rest of my life with.
friends that i love but that i can also be away from.
work that i appreciate and enjoy.
the ability to be at home and just be.

those are things i feel grating against me right now.
i really want to be at home. i love home.

2009

I don't want to do work. I do not want to read or study or write critical papers. I want to run around outside and sing loudly and eat good food and writewritewrite (NOT about cells or Heathcliff or pilgrims) and talk about boys and twirl around in my skirt and sleep and watch Davidson vs. Georgetown and go to lake campus and have meaningfulmeaningless conversations with people who aren't here and blast rap music from my ipod. Yep.

2010

Slowly it emptied and slowly I was the last person left standing in Section 1, the student section.

And then -- call me corny, hokey, overly-nostalgic, sentimental, whatever, they probably all apply in some sense -- I said a little prayer. For me, this place deserves a prayer, needs a prayer, is a prayer in itself... so I prayed, softly, standing in the middle of empty red seats that have been a part of me for 3 1/2 years, since I was barely 19 years old. Names and moments crowded my heart. Spoken, announced into the air.

None of it was ever expected. All of it has made a difference.

I trailed through the rows, and lingered as I hopped the last step up out of the section. I stood behind the railing and looked out. I paced. I felt the metal on my palm and tapped it lightly, home (see you...?). And then I turned around and pushed open the squeaky door and walked out.

My place here isn't going away but it's going to change.

2011

I am a human and for me, because I am human, I write. I write because I am human. You people in my life, you, all of you, bring it out and push me into it and give me so much to say. You overflow and overfill and I topple and I spill and words somehow come out. I am drawn to the gritty questioning bits of life that may not seem like questions, they may seem like the most obvious things in the world, but to me they are so mysterious, jarring, messy and gorgeous. What individual actions mean and the power of collective emotion and what strength looks like. How we are drawn together by no true visible standstill thing, but how splitseconds and long journeys can equally ground root and grab; how music can bring tears and somehow the world seems a burst of brilliance or great great sorrow; how sacredness first comes, small and floating, growing infinitely into deep roar or stumbling silence. Time, and history, and blood pulsing through bodies within it day by day by day. For grace-laden humor, for sore and hot hurt, for settling and stomaching and straining through the mundane and the massive and getting somewhere, getting closer, to what...?

2012

And now, I'm out of college, settled into a job and a place to live and a life, really. New driver's license, official resident and all. I am so glad of it, so grateful, after last year's uncertainty and frustration and learning curve. In some ways, though, it's made it more difficult to write.... or maybe that's a new excuse. I guess what I mean is, the topics come less easily because in some sense they aren't pouring out of my head, I'm not awash with questions that seem to hinge so deeply on my next steps as I was last year. Sure, now there are different questions of course, but they aren't invading my consciousness every single second. So I've written less. I've slept more. I've written more for work. Then I've gone home to crash and re-watch Downton Abbey episodes. As I said yesterday to someone, I *think* a lot about writing, what I could write, what I should write, what I will write. But "will" never seems to come, at least not with the passionate vengeance that I wish for. Which is silly, because I know that the bulk of writing is sitting in a room by yourself typing until crap seems less crappy. So I need to make "will" happen. Will the will.

2013

Here I am, still rejoicing in the ordinary, still trying to find a way to tell the story of everyday. Back then, I did it without thinking, my fingers lightly skimming the keyboard after school... Back then, when I was tying up the phone line during the days of dial-up. Now I strive for mornings (oops - does midnight count?), thinking through the haze to sunshine, no more strange buzz of dial tones and so much - too much? - freedom of connection, worlds upon worlds granted by a click.

I've learned, seen, felt, experienced so much. It flows through me and around me and gets straightened out and offered up through fingers pushing keys onto sleek glass paper shining through the screen.

I give thanks for that teenager who decided to do this one February night, after her church play was over and she missed the camaraderie of her friends. She didn't care about sounding elegant - something that I can't claim as honestly anymore - and in the process, she found the simple grace of writing her life through her eyes, constantly rejoicing.

2014

I want to feel settled, with all of this and more, I want to have a cozy house and a yard and a dog with my husband (and one grocery list, one refrigerator, one place to go at night, not two houses 30 miles apart) and a writing room and a church and friends and family and a way to give myself to the world and its people that I haven't quite figured out yet. I want to figure all of that out right! this! second! I want, I want, I want to know.

But more than wanting to know sometimes is the urge to just fall flat on my face and hibernate until all of this is figured out. I'm so anxious and excited within the mundane of my every day that I feel paralyzed. I am not getting stuff done that I need to get done. I keep stumbling toward the future in my head, my head that cannot know exactly what's coming. Or I keep checking Twitter. Or doing something else so totally millennial that countless others, older and wiser, will scoff at me and say I'm being so impatient, so wasteful, so unappreciative of time, of what I have right now. I'll probably come back and read this post in 15+ years and agree with them. Hell, the rational part of me agrees right this second. I'm sure you agree too, God, but I'm sure you're also smiling at me, deeply and fully, because you know me, and you know my humanness, you know that my brain twists my stomach when I can't have control.

2015

Well. So much for a good blogging schedule to start off 2015, huh? Although, I have to promise you that I have a good excuse. I'm in my third semester of my MFA program, which means that I am actually writing all the time, just not where you can see it. Hopefully someday you will see it in book form, but to get to that point, it's nose to the grindstone in Microsoft Word, not the blogosphere. But hang with me - I'll be back one of these days.

2016

And now I'm back.

High Church with Heart.

The Friday Five: happy people on TV + good people in real life

Fifteen Februaries.