Sincerely Sophi

As I approach graduation, I am often faced with the question, "Are you ready?"  Well meaning friends and family, or my own mind, ask me this question repeatedly. Honestly, I struggle to know the answer. Am I ready? Will I get everything done before graduation? Will I ever feel ready to spread my wings and fly into the next season of adulthood? I am honestly not the most qualified judge of my own readiness. I struggle sometimes in the midst of challenge and change to believe in myself and my capabilties. But I have been blessed this semester to be encouraged and pushed by the tough love of my professors.  I was consistently behind in assignments for journalism and trying to communicate with my professor in order to convince myself that I could complete everything, despite the looming lack of time.  Despite my efforts, I don't know that I really believed I could do it all. "You'll get it done. I know you will," said Melanie, my journalism professor, with simpl

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” - C.S. Lewis I came upon this C.S. Lewis quote last year and have been thinking about it recently. Our longing for beauty is not just a longing to witness something beautiful, but a desire to actually participate actively, fully, with it. Perhaps in doing so we become, ourselves, beautiful. What a wonderful image for what it means to behold beauty. To behold is to participate in, to grasp, to display, to mingle with. As we immerse ourselves in it's glory we unite with beauty itself.  As a theatre artist and writer, I desire to craft beautiful work. To tell stories with quality artistic execution. Beginning with my childhood love of the ocean, ornate books, and wildflowers, I have always been drawn to beauty, especially

I want to believe grief is graceful, flowing like a majestic river, pouring out of my soul like a symphony.  My grief is a river and it is full of grace, but the river is sometimes rough. The tide ebbs and flows, from still to steady to rough, bold, winds. It winds down and round and rushes through the hills. Then calm, serene, trickling over pebbles, twists and turns and churns over course boulders, cascading down. Water, thundering, crashing, breaking, forming, molding, shaping.  My grief is a river. It is beautiful and it is ever changing, ever moving, ever flowing. Some moments soft and life giving. Holy. Other moments it thunders and I can't hear a word above it's noise. Holy too. I fear it will drown me if I dwell too long in its churning waters. But this river is not a well of despair. It is not still and dead, it is moving and changing, flowing fresh with hope, alive and abundant. Life giving water -- sacred, holy, grief -- baptizes me with grace. I relax and sink into