I was always jealous of my eagle scout little brother. But I realized in my mid-twenties that nothing was stopping me from learning to pee in the woods but my own imagination. I spent all my credit card points on backpacking gear and set off on a lifelong journey of becoming at home in the wild, pushing through my fears of bears, heights, and strange sounds in the dark. I’m still scared, but I won’t stop wandering out there.
In my professional life, I studied philosophy and writing, and, in search of God, obtained a masters degree in biblical exegesis. I did find God there in the ancient scriptures, moved by the earthiness of God’s story on earth. After my studies, I worked for over seven years in my dream job as an academic editorial assistant for a leading Christian publisher. Nothing against the books, but I was wasting away in that sterile cubicle. I came to my senses and left to start my own creative business, pursuing the freedom to wander through more of God’s wild earth.
These days I am editing for a range of clients, developing my personal writing discipline, taking my camera everywhere, and spending lots of time in my little urban plot of soil and weeds, learning to cultivate it and to forage for wild food and medicine there. I’ve never felt more deified and yet also more human than when I am dirty and in the weeds, bringing a little order, but not too much. That’s the approach I want to take with my creative work: just the right amount of artistry to reveal some of the human and divine wildness in each of us.
Thanks for reading,
