About

I grew up in a Navy family, moving frequently and enjoying our many coastal homes. With four younger sisters and plenty of extracurriculars, I thought staying busy was normal, upbeat, and fun. As an English-Spanish double major and ROTC cadet at Asbury College, I first realized it was possible to overextend myself: as principal violist in the orchestra, I was about to miss a key rehearsal for Handel’s Messiah, due to being cast in a small reader’s theatre production at the same time! While seated uneasily in a professor’s office sorting out my commitments aloud, I began to understand the cost of all this fun.

Years later, while serving on active duty in the US Army, I experienced several “earthquake” life events: marriage to my husband Zach, losing my mother and grandmother to cancer that same year, and my first encounter with workplace burnout. Depressed and angry, I began preparing for life as a civilian, completing my Master of Arts in teaching through the University of Southern California’s hybrid virtual program. To make it all work, I sometimes student taught in uniform and attended class from the hood of my humvee at field training with my unit. Our first daughter Gwyn was born, and I found new strength and new limits, which made my last few years in the Army more enjoyable. I found the work rewarding, but became more focused on my true passion: education.

My military career culminated with a deployment to Kandahar, Afghanistan with an infantry unit supporting Afghan-led security operations. After returning home, welcoming our second daughter Lorraine, and leaving the Army, I spent four years teaching English and theatre, grades 8-11. When our youngest daughter Marian joined the family, the limits of a 9-to-5 workday became too impractical. “Work hard, play hard” was no longer working. I had almost lost my ability to be playful, easily triggered by fear of wasted time and opportunity. Our three daughters and I embarked on a journey to regain delight: homeschooling with help from a co-op, and teaching English and Spanish part-time online.

In 2020, our oldest daughter Gwyn was diagnosed with glioblastoma–the same aggressive, lethal brain cancer that had killed my mother years before. Our two year journey as a family through that “valley of the shadow of death” became a test of everything I had learned about everything, including joy. Writing therapeutically through her journey, I found insights I’d been toying with for years, finally snapping into place. The loss of Gwyn after her courageous cancer walk in the summer of 2022 still shapes everything, for us. Her absence daily reminds us that pursuit of happiness is often a bubble about to burst. In contrast, solemn joy is like solid ground where we can stand firm, dance, dig, plant, keep watch, weep, and be laid to rest.

In recent years, I have learned much from my home church where I serve as Family Minister, and from the community of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This is where the phrase “solemn joy” first struck me, and moved from an abstract idea to a visceral reality. As a lifelong lover of both literature and language, I enjoy the plot line of a good hero story. In everyday challenges, I notice where Christ our Pattern (having lived the only perfect hero’s journey) teaches us to suffer well. Once in college, I nearly left Christian faith. At least, I nearly left is community: the Church. But when I heard John 1 read aloud in Spanish in La Catedral de Sevilla during mass without any of the usual baggage, I heard and believed again the beautiful, fresh truth. Moments like that one work forward and backward in my understanding: like leaven, they expand and support the goodness in the dough. This is also how solemn joy works. As we wait expectantly through the darkest of nights, we also deepen in our capacity for delight. 

Photo credits:

Background image by Clem Onojeghuo, free to use

Keeneland Make-A-Wish Day,Gingersnapsky.com, 2021