All posts by Sarah Kirsten

Large white puffs of snow were drifting down. It was the first snowfall of the season. One landed on my eyelash as I walked back from letting the hens out for the day. It’s always a delight when a snowflake falls on your eyelash, isn’t it? It’s like putting on a jacket you haven’t worn…

Act One: A Failure in Kindness One time I had to ask the local sheep shearer to come to shear my family’s flock. He is notoriously difficult to work with. Several experiences with him in the past led to me not look forward to making this phone call. Mother and I were so anxious to…

A long time ago a close friend told me about a man he knows, an elderly gentleman who went blind during his middle years. This man told my friend that when his sight finally left, he realized he was truly seeing for the first time. Seeing all the beautiful things that the stimulus of sight…

The phrase reached my ears while discussing future plans with a former boyfriend. I shared my dream to someday be a stay-at-home mother and still provide income, but not bear the primary burden of family financial security. To this he responded, “Not only do you not want to contribute to society, you want me to…

Have you ever had a major crisis come up in your life or a big door closed on something you were putting a lot of hope in? Maybe in a career or relationship or something else you hold dearly? It is devastating when a dream, a hope, a plan goes careening off a cliff edge….

It seems like this time of extra isolation provides an opportunity for creating extra amounts of fun. With lots of places being closed, I’ve started creating adventure events for people! I put one together last weekend. Each team had to trudge through the woods to find and decode a series of clues. One clue had…

Have you seen images of a plant seed germinating? A condensed version of the germination story is the seed first soaks up water, then the roots start growing, growing, and then the first leaves break through the soil surface to be greeted by warm rays of sunshine. Throughout the process to maturity, a plant grows…

This summer I walked out my back door and groaned. The mulberry tree dropped a plethora of berries on the patio. There was a berry every two inches in each direction. Some berries get mercifully eaten by wildlife. Most just seem to await their fate of returning to soil. I’m tempted to be annoyed because…

“Queen to b4, knight to F7, bishop to H5…” I couldn’t help but overhear an older man talking to himself as he replayed one of the great chess games of history. He held an orange book with tattered corners in one hand while swiftly moving the pieces on the board in front of him with…

Do you ever think about how no one chose to be here? No one submitted an application to exist. Our existence was chosen for us. Therefore, no one has more or less right to be here than you. You have a right to take up space. You are enough, the very essence of who you…

Every once in a while, your ship will sail right into the dreaded Doldrums of Creativity. Have you been there recently? What I’ve found in my life is that usually when I am in the Doldrums of Creativity, it’s not that I don’t have ideas, it’s that I don’t have faith in my ideas. It’s…

Growing up I was bombarded with ideologies about not finding happiness in worldly measures of success. Things like, making a lot of money, getting promotions – all external measures of generally doing well in life, so to speak. The intent of these ideologies was noble – they were meant to reinforce the idea that external…

One of my favorite lines in the Anne of Green Gables series is when Anne is walking home one day with a kind man carrying a lamp. She describes how the light created by the lamp makes the darkness feel like the enemy. The contrast between light and dark is stark, making it difficult to…