deanna hershiser

Christian traditions of various types have been placed around me all my life. Even more these days, when I tread paths of some ancient beliefs. At least, I imagine what it’s like to be a pilgrim on those sorts of journeys.
I’m struck by the beauty in Orthodox rituals – from decorous clothing to music to [...]

Though on the outside, wasting
(perishing, decaying, you fill in the blank),
the inward me is renewed day by day.
~Paul of Tarsus
What has renewed you?

A week and a day ago I waited for my little dog to die.
Brindy had lived a good life, a really swell batch of days spanning nearly 18 years. This day she suffered. My mom had told me (from her experience with our 17-year-old doggy from my childhood), “When it’s time, you’ll know.” She was [...]

Water reflected moon’s shine. White crests and packed sand dimly shown, drawing the two of us from a room of comfort into the chill and gusts before dawn. Feebly I attempted visual capture. But more to the point, the narrative flowing in my head channeled thoughts toward an interesting moment.
The writer-learning this past year has [...]

On this quest for understanding, for even a trickled spring gilded bright beneath with treasure, I tread many empty days in which pebbles scuff my toes along shores of speculation.
But one drear morning, a wise old trout, twenty-five inches at least, appears and travels beside me, tipping a shiny sliver of insight toward me with [...]

At least two bloggers this week have admitted they over-think things. Such confessions may clog our spheres, but I think, rather (in my over-thinking way), that I gravitate to posts by these types.
What else can be said for a woman nearing 50 who posits motives for her actions 30-plus years ago, on paper, submitting them [...]

I remember walking to school in second grade, narrating my life in my head. I did that during those years. Every day a chapter in my story. Sometimes I even caught myself about to add “she said” after I spoke to someone.
One morning on the way to the busy street’s crosswalk where patrol boys stood [...]

is the culprit. Because I urgged out of house this morning and found a chair in the library magazine room and, though I’d planned to research Parents and Parenting, pulled a beauteous-covered magazine from the shelf first and read articles by the powerful, the assumed correct, the there’s only one side to this story for [...]

The garden tangles. Zucchini swell and elongate, beans curve in fading half-moons, pumpkins appear beneath rough leaves, their runners twined around the tall grass stalks I grasp and tug away.
I’m tidying only slightly. Digging out brown marigolds, clipping columbine pods. Late-day light on my jungle is calming. This past season, more than many, I’ve been [...]

During an enjoyable anniversary yesterday, on which equipment broke down and Tim worked late but we still ate out and cooled off a while together, I mused about time travel.
It’s almost too bad that on 7/28/79 Tim and I couldn’t experience a quick jaunt 30 years into the future. I think I would’ve liked knowing [...]