Yearly Archives: 2025

It Takes A Village

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From the ecstatic moment a person arrives at Holden Village, an iconic retreat center located in the heart of Washington’s North Cascades Mountains that offers visitors a unique opportunity to step into the wilderness they are greeted with a “Hosti”. This person designs a sign with your name on it to welcome you to the village and answer any questions you may have. From the moment the school bus with Holden Village written on the side was in sight of the village entrance all the way to the time I stepped off said bus I was greeted by most, if not all, of the village waving at me and cheering for my arrival. Before even getting to the village I was required to complete a Child Safety Training which is crucial to the safety, comfort, and well-being of the children that reside in Holden Village.  I realized that I’ve been […]

The River Between Us: Growing with Nature and Community

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It’s now been almost a week that I’ve been at the Grunewald Guild here in the mountains of Washington state, and I’m thoroughly excited for the months ahead. I’m staying in what’s called the Riverhouse, as it directly overlooks the river flowing 50 feet away from the back porch. This porch is one of my favourite places so far to sit and enjoy the area, as it’s fully screened in to keep the bugs away (mosquitos remain my arch-nemesis) and is beautifully lit with string lights in the evenings. The quiet rush of the flowing water is a constant and peaceful sound, and a wide range of birds fill the trees and air with their calls too. (There’s one critter that makes a fascinating little clicking sound sometimes and I can never find it, but it intrigues me.) I was surprised by how windy it gets here in the side […]

We don’t need to put on a cape to transform lives

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My first week of internship at Opportunity Enterprises was successfully completed this Friday and I am already looking forward to coming back after the weekend! Opportunity Enterprises offers inclusive opportunities for work, transportation, leisure, among other opportunities, for people of all abilities, opening doors to a more equitable and fairer world. In this first week I met incredible people, felt extremely welcome, felt a good sense of home, and learned valuable lessons. This first week of training included several lessons, such as First Aid (CPR) and Crisis Prevention (CPI), which are essential for ensuring the well-being of the children who will be spending the summer with us. However, what was most significant for me was learning about the company’s history, how it arose and why. For many years, people with disabilities were neglected, excluded and mistreated, kept in isolation within institutions with no intention of re-socialization and under abusive “treatments”. […]

Caps and Gowns…and Callings

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On a basement bookshelf of my home sits a framed photograph I’d forgotten about until recently. In that picture, I’m beaming in cap and gown, flanked on either side by my smiling parents as we stand in the backyard garden of a former landlord’s property. That day was muggy and hot (not surprising for May in South Carolina), and I remember my nervous anticipation on that celebratory afternoon–the kind of feeling where you’re not sure if your stomach is buoyed with breathless excitement or clenched in apprehension…or, more likely, both. Either way, you’re holding your breath a bit more than usual.   While milestone moments can seem cliched to focus on, they do often define real junctures, and mine that afternoon certainly did.   I had made all sorts of plans, convinced that I needed to map things out in particular ways. Some of those plans would take dramatic turns […]

The Gift and Service of Stories

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The unflinching memorist Dorothy Allison writes, “Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that telling a story all the way through is an act of love.” A thorough and full accounting is indeed an act of love, and even an act of service.    Following a meaningful spring break service trip in northwest Indiana several weeks ago, I might amend Allison’s formulation a bit further: telling a story all the way through is an act of love and service…and so is attending to that story–listening compassionately, for understanding, and then figuring out what it means to hold and carry that story forward.    In a week spent criss-crossing northwest Indiana and south-southwest Chicagoland, we (Anna and Kat from the Institute for Leadership and Service) joined eight Valpo students on a journey to hear story after story–some ecology, some art, some history, some activism, some […]

“Once-a ponce-a” and the Power of Story

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As a young toddler–bright-eyed and babbling happily–I loved few things more than a good story. I was known to pad into a room, book in tow, while clamoring for what I cheerfully called a “once-a ponce-a.” So many children’s books and fairy tales, after all, take narrative flight with the well-worn opening line, “Once upon a time…”  Hence, my half-comprehending shorthand. Slightly older and intent to share (force?) my love of story on my younger sister, I would solemnly intone the beginning for her the same way (to the doubtless mirth of any nearby adult). Nevertheless, “once-a ponce-a” rapidly became a family expression.   Perhaps I could channel this tale from childhood into destiny, invariably paving the way to my status as a justified book nerd with a doctorate in literature. A little tidy, but not without some merit.   Actually, though, this early anecdote has been on my mind recently […]

Sunshine, Limitations, and Vocational Discernment

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The tap, tap, tap on the metal roof turned into pitter-patter-pitter-patter, and my mother-in-law and I looked at each other with an expression of urgency.  The clothes we had hung outside on the line the day before hadn’t dried, and for fear of night-time rain we had brought them in, damp in their hamper near the back door.  On this particular morning we had optimistically re-clipped them to the metal wire spanning the entire yard from the neighbors’ wall to the side of the house.  It had dawned clear over the mountains, but seemingly out of nowhere the clouds had rolled in, and it was now raining in what should have been the first days of the dry season in Costa Rica.     In looking at our clothes and shoes and hiking boots in the backyard, it struck me that clothes-drying is a kind of microcosm for understanding vocation.  Discerning […]