The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

I am sitting here writing this exactly a week before my fiftieth birthday and feeling a bit like we as a nation haven't progressed very far in the time between dates. The level of racial tension and hatred is enough the slice through with a knife. While the dogs and hoses are replaced with Fox news and a bunch of tea bags, the hate has bubbled to the surface to remind us that there is still work to do. My twelve year old daughter was called a monkey by a car full of five white male local high school students. Of course she was shocked, hurt, and a bit afraid as she walked to the coffee shop from her middle school.  She walked in and came straight to me with tears streaming down her face.  I held her for what seemed like hours until she could tell me what happened. Every scary scene played through my mind as I held her quivering body, backback still on, violin in her hand, and waited for her to be able to let me guide her down to the bench in the booth.  I never le...

I have been dead for ten years. That is a startling statement, perhaps the start of a poem, but it is a reality that was understood while walking along the path at Walker Lake. What does being dead and yet alive mean? Did I die to my attitude and opinions? Did I crucify my speech and hang my words on the cross? What part of me died? This past weekend was one of the holiest on the calendar of Christ followers. This past week was also one of the most sacred on the calender of my Jewish bretheren. It was fitting, therefore, that I thought about my spiritual sense and the place of Spirit in my life. A little over ten years ago, May 2013, to be more accurate, I became unemployed.  It was scary and terrifying to be laid off from my well off corporate job by the devil of a tiny manager who was intimidate by my degrees, contribution to the company, budding career, and light.  She had already been the manager of several of my colleagues in my training program who proclaim...