Writer

I have been writing my entire life and writing professionally for more than half of it. I’ve written articles for small local papers and national magazines, for websites and bloggers. I’ve written a number of books (See “Books & Essays”) that span from journalistic explorations (such as Day of Reckoning) to personal memoirs (such as Facing Forward), to historical biographies (such as my recently-published Clare of Assisi, Gentle Warrior). I’ve also written devotional books (such as Forgiveness and Reconciliation, with Hendrickson).

My writing has evolved over the decades of my career and I’m finding that I have less to say about things. Instead, the little I say carries greater weight and perhaps more clarity and bravery. This may be due to my personal evolution as a Christian woman, or simply to the fact that I’m getting older and life has done its work over my soul. In any case, as the years pass on, the picture of what is actually true and then truly important becomes more clear. I focus my eyes, heart and my work there.

Flower Farmer

My love of gardening arose later in my life and my love for flower farming later still. I grow flowers in my sons’ fields at their learn-by-doing nonprofit program known as The Garden School. I make bouquets which I sell at our farm stand and share the beauty of the garden with a small army of volunteers and interns who work with me in the fields.

The most meaningful aspect of growing flowers for me has been participating in the miracle of creation. When you put a seed in the soil, if the basic necessities for growth are present (water, light, nutrients) the life inside the seed will do its appropriate work and it will sprout. Then, assuming the needed elements remain operative, the growing plant will continue to do what it was created to do: it will grow shoots. Then, with the work of time, it will come into full bloom, becoming what it was destined to be: fully, wholly a flower — upright, beautiful, perfect and irreplaceable. If only we humans could believe for our own souls the lessons learned in the destiny of the flower! Each bouquet I make from my garden is unique in its beauty and diverse in its design. In the same way, each human soul in the exercise of true humanness blooms as only that soul can. Each displays its glory differently. The final manifestation is altogether unique and effusive in beauty, balance and vivacity.