Backyard bonfire days and barefoot swimming parties are a distant memory as we prepare for the long winter months ahead in these parts.  Nevertheless, I am reminded that the call to open my heart and home to others has not changed.  There are plenty of ways to show hospitality, even in the coldest winter months. While it’s refreshing to invite the neighbors to the backyard for a picnic, it sometimes feels overwhelming to open the doors of our inside worlds and welcome the noise and the mess. If you’re longing for socialization but not sure you want to open wide your front door, remember that hospitality can happen anywhere. 7…

It’s a clear evening overlooking Granite Creek. The sun has slipped behind the canyon walls, and alpenglow paints the West Ridge salmon.  I’m not thinking about how to show hospitality this evening – not in the least. The year is 2001, and I’ve just entered the identity-searching decade of my twenties. This will be the decade when I stumble blindly in the relentless search for the woman I want to become. I’ll begin my teaching career in the public high school. I have no way of knowing these things now, of course. For now, I’m content with my three-month job of washing dishes in the lodge where the teachers come…

It’s a pristine October day that feels more like early September than mid-autumn with all its color and brilliance and the scent of freshly fallen leaves blanketing the earth. We go to the woods in search of fall decorations to help us celebrate autumn and come home with plastic bags overflowing with sticky pine cones, acorns, leaves, ferns, and rocks.  The pine cones find new homes in baskets throughout the house, the leaves are scattered across the dining room table while crayons make leaf imprints on construction paper, and the acorns and stones find their way to vases.  We have been on a quest to celebrate autumn without embracing spookiness,…