a novel

I wrote the following sermon to share with my church community on March 15, 2020. And then COVID. So I am sharing it here :) I love a story about a woman at a well. Maybe because I’m named after another woman, whose biblical story begins much the same way as our Samaritan woman, with a strange man asking her for water at a well. I imagine this Samaritan woman and my Old Testament namesake, Rebekah, very similarly. Wearing loose, hopefully light clothing, carrying a large clay pot, with a veil or scarf thrown over her head to protect her from the heat of the sun. Going about a daily task, about to have her life changed by a causal interaction with a strange man at the well she has visited every day of her life. You know the story of Rebekah - the wife of Isaak - who found her future husband and made her mark on history by answering Abraham’s servant’s request for water - and also offering to water his camels - on her daily trek to the town well one morning. Maybe the Samaritan wom...

Ten years ago, when I was just 19, I wrote a short and sweet bucket list . As I celebrated the 30th of a dear friend a few weeks ago and find myself starting to think about the last year of my 3rd decade, and the traditional "things to do before your thirty" lists, this bucket list came to mind. And as I read through it, I was pleasantly surprised by how I have lived into those desires of my 19 year old self over the past ten years. At the top of my list in 2010 was a desire to "find a home of my own, either a place, a person, or a people that I can come back to time and time again." I was willing to wait on this one, but I am so grateful that I didn't have to wait too long. In 2013 I found my person and we chose to walk through life together in 2016. Since then we have built a home for ourselves in KW close to my siblings - a place . But also, through the mystery of marriage, I have come to share in the stability of his family home in Virginia - another pla...

The mortgage is signed, the lawyer appointment set, the moving truck ordered, and the friends to help recruited. The house is in boxes (or a disaster), and we have begun to count our "lasts." This moving project feels like it has consumed my life the past 4 months. And now we are only days away. Time to breathe deeply, to let my soul feel, to take stock and to move forward. How do I balance grief and hope in this space? There are both in this move where we are trading in a yard we love for a fenced porch with a maple tree, a kitchen full of memories with one full of potential, a house that has been full of people for a space to build a home. When I take moments to reflect, I am also stuck with a sense of impermanence. How long will we get to build this home? How much energy and love can we poor into this place knowing that it will disappear as well in a few years? I guess that when you are playing house with someone else's money, even when they are your parents, the...

We moved to Ontario three years ago - and after crossing the border and taking some deep breaths, we began to settle into our new home at The Fireside. The Fireside began as a community home in the Fall of 2013 - and since then has had a variety of iterations and transformations, but has continued to serve as a collective, collaborative, hospitable, community home for a group of 5-7 young adults, often University of Waterloo students, and almost always an Enns family child. When we joined in 2016, Matt and I took over as house managers, and in there 3 years we lived there we have shared the space with 6 other roommates. Matt and I have enjoyed the energy of our community home, the convenience of insta-friends at our fingertips, the opportunity to host people and events, and the wonderful yard space for Firepits, chickens, gardening, and play. We have shared many meals, made much wine, and built community around games and firepits. And now we have reached a time of ending for The Fi...

 I am enjoying a hot summer afternoon on the porch of the Brubacher House - a 1850 historic Mennonite farm house museum where my siblings are care-takers and I occasionally twiddle away a few afternoons volunteering as museum interpreter when they are traveling or otherwise engaged. It is blessedly warm out - for which I am grateful in the depths of my soul. I look out over the beautifully maintained four-square garden, Columbia Lake, and the new baseball diamond and reflect, relax, maybe even read while waiting for the occasional museum visitor. The only thing this summer afternoon is missing is an ice cold glass of some home made lemon aid (which I could maybe raid from Josh and Laura's fridge) or sweet tea. The sprinklers that start up to water the baseball diamond every 10 minutes or so are also quite tempting. I have been meaning to reflect in this space again, after my long absence and subsequent soul barring and rather dramatic post in May. The response to my previous pos...

I find myself starting to open up to life again. The joy that comes with longer days, sunlight, bare-feet (at least in the house), and growing seedlings. This pattern of seasonal depression is exhausting. I re-read my post from last spring, and I wonder - was this winter really that much worse than all the others? And maybe not, but it was harrowing. And here, on the other side of it, I am still overwhelmed, and trying not to be ashamed, of where my depression took me these past 7 months. After finishing my master's degree in sociology and my thesis on finding meaning in restorative justice work, I found myself inexplicably lost. I knew that it was not time to pursue a PhD (if there will be a time), but I did not know who or how to be in this post grad school space. My life lost meaning, lost vision, lost hope. I found anxiety - debilitating panic attacks. Feelings of worthlessness, of being a fraud, of failing to live into who I wanted to be in the world. My inner critic beat...