Author Archives: amy j howton

these days are full uncertainty. full of witnessing those who are disadvantaged being disadvantaged. full of sacrificing the many for the fewer of us. full of enjoying privilege at the cost of those marginalized. full of interconnectedness, globally. in many ways, nothing has changed. and so much has. we can’t reach out and touch thoseContinue reading “wtf”

this pandemic is a big ole mirror, reflecting back to us the truth of who we are–the good, the bad, the ugly. one of the reflections is of our broken, inequitable systems that favor some while harming others. there is disproportionate harm being done based on these systems that we’ve created, upheld, and participated in.Continue reading “dis-ease”

inspired by reading wendell berry’s “the hidden wound”, again. this book, written by berry in 1970 is so rich and still so resonant. this weekend, in a community of practice committed to racial healing and spiritual liberation, we shared reflections on our awakenings to our collective “hidden wounds”. while we were specifically looking at theContinue reading “hidden wounds”

you welcomed us home. reminding us of who we are in this immense + brilliant universe woven together with threads of beauty and terror and bound by the magnitude of life life spilling out of the panderosa’s aging bark kissing the flirty spangler’s wings coarsing through the virgin river and in the loons’ joyful jauntContinue reading “Zion”

nothing means what you think it means. a truth that keeps me laughing/crying. we hold only threads of complex, layered stories and to know we can never know is freeing.

i’m reading victor frankl’s man’s search for meaning alongside howard thurman, alongside richard rohr, alongside ram dass, alongside gloría anzaldúa (cause, always). yeah, there’s quite a conversation going on inside my heart-mind! and as it always is, i’m spiraling around a question. the relationship between freedom and form. a while ago i wrote about aContinue reading “freedom”

departures can be sweet. it’s too bad that departures often get a bad rap. for sure departures signal an ending, a closing of a chapter. grief accompanies departure and fear lurks in its shadows, whispering seductions that hold us in desperately, grasping onto what was and what we are departing. in a season of lifeContinue reading “departure”

words do not catch my attention as perhaps they once did. my energy is captured by what is in between those words and underneath what’s left unsaid and overemphasized the way in which the words are spoken the life, death that breathes meaning into them. this listening yields an entirely different narrative– a story thatContinue reading “listening”

I surrender to the pull within me To become who i am Shedding armor of expectation, prescription, presumption To make way for the fruits my soul will bear Or maybe there will be no fruits–who knows?! The point is that my soul has work to do Right work And it’s been asking me to doContinue reading “surrender”