publishing peace

Imagine this. It is the perfect temperature outside. The sun is shining. And you are sitting beneath a canopy of wisteria and honeysuckle, the smell of them filling you up as the folks around you talk in rapid-fire Italian and laugh at jokes you are beginning to understand. Any minute now they'll bring you antipasto, and you will twist your fork around beef just barely browned at the edges, prosciutto with honey and walnuts, fresh mozzarella. The children will try to speak English to you, even the ones who don't know it well yet, and you will delight with them in all their discoveries and accomplishments, which they are anxious to share with you. This is my reality. It's taking my eyes some time to get adjusted to the brightness of it all, and it's taking my brain some time to process how amazing it is that I have been where I have been. My host family is always checking on me. They are always saying my name. "Emily, how is the [food I just tried]? Emily, how d...

Wow, wild week! I arrived in Italy Monday night. It's been a wonderful week of exploring my cool little northern Italian town, getting to know my host family, and seeing Design Week in Milan (which really felt like a chick flick moment, might I add). Salone Del Mobile has left me feeling very inspired. For six hours I got to walk around a world-famous display of interior/exterior design elements from acclaimed designers throughout the world. My mind was absolutely blown, and it was super cool to have the lid explode off the top of what I thought was possible as far as design. I kept notes of things I saw that got my gears turning. I'd like to go back there someday -- but not just to look, to work! It's become so clear to me that part of Christ's reason for sharing the talent parable is because He knew how many of us would hide not only our talents but our personalities. I saw a sign at Salone Del Mobile that read: "Build your own dreams or someone else will hir...

They told me not to thank people when they help me, because no one does that in France. But I do. Everyone, all the time. It's a reflex. Guy who picked up my fifty cent piece? Merci. Lady who opened the door for me on the metro when my button wasn't working? Merci. Kids who returned the contents of my wallet as they go spilling out onto the pavement because I forgot I left it unzipped and flung it all over like the clumsy American girl I am? Merci. Even my Uber driver who wasn't my Uber driver who ripped me off got a merci, and he didn't even deserve it. My first couple days in France, I knew I had "TOURIST" stamped on my forehead. What a negative, nasty word that word is. It brings to mind some weird ogling person probably wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a straw hat who is completely oblivious to what's around them and how things work. They are in a place just to be there. I would get the looks from the locals, especially when I would ask for help. "J...

A  new world calls across the ocean A new world calls across the sky A new world whispers in the shadows Time to fly, time to fly Just a few days, and we're not in Kansas anymore, folks. Well, actually, I've never been to Kansas. I've never been to Paris either. But I'm not going to Kansas, I'm going to Paris. Kansas feels safer right now. They speak English in Kansas. They have a lot of corn fields. I can get behind that. Paris has been a dream of mine. If I'm being honest, I never thought I would see it in person. Especially not by myself. Of course, if you'd asked me in high school, a solo trip to Paris was probably the best, most ideal situation ever, of all time. I loved being alone. But now? It's about one moment The moment before it all becomes clear And in that one moment You start to believe there's nothing to fear It's about one second And just when you're on the verge of success The sky starts to change And the wind ...

More than two thousand years ago, a man approached the base of a mountain. I don’t know what he looked like, but I can imagine -- sweating, a tightness in his eyes, sun-weathered face, dirt on his heels. A tension about him, an urgency. And maybe -- I can’t tell you for sure, but maybe -- every step he took he struggled with the boy in his arms. His reason for approaching the mountain. His only son. I’d like to think that perhaps, at his side, there came a woman, the mother of the child. Perhaps the burden was just as visibly part of her as it was with this father. Perhaps she watched, constantly worried, as the nights grew cold, as they journeyed toward their last chance. Presumably, they had suffered alongside this child for years. Every day it was a different trial -- sometimes, he fell into fire, sometimes into water, and always these parents had to be vigilant so that they could save their precious son from himself. It’s hard for me to imagine how they must hav...

An author's note: These words were not written for you to read, but I felt impressed to share them with you. Please know that as you do, you are reading things that I have fought incredibly hard to learn. You are reading a lot of who I am in the very corners of me, too, seeing a part of myself that, for all my openness and desire for authenticity and vulnerability, I don’t divulge often -- in part because it’s so honest, so authentic, that I worry that people will misinterpret it, twist it into something less pure than it is. I don't write these words to manipulate your feelings for the sake of it, or to appear to you in any particular way, or to make you think of me differently; these words are simply the truths that I know, written to the children I believe I will one day be blessed to have, and they come from the deepest part of my soul. To my dear ones: I'm currently twenty-one, and I think about you every single day. Sometimes with a lot of impatience. I d...

Y'all, I been thinking again. I've been thinking about a lot of things. It seems like my brain is overcrowded with thoughts, teeming with ideas. It's been hard to narrow down what I actually want to say here, what words I feel like should be shared. There are plenty of things upstairs in my brain that are sifting around waiting to become ideas with a little bit more substance and a little more time baking in my Brain Oven. But let's talk, shall we (or I guess I shall, since this is my blog and I'm the one writing here), about  happiness. I have been thinking about this particular topic probably for my whole life. Recently, I've been thinking about what makes me happy. There are actually quite a lot of things -- I love sunshine-y days, banjos, my mom's sweet pork enchiladas, cheesecake, flannel shirts, swingsets, soft fabric, bright lipstick, pretty dresses. I love laughter, the sound of my fingers against the keyboard of a computer, Claire de Lun...