It was just a game of kickball — a game that had spontaneously arisen. It was just after we were clearing the picnic tables, and just before the town street lights flickered on.

Our girls wanted to play.

So did their father.

I scraped plates into the garbage can, and after the girls scrambled toward the field, I  found a seat in the dugout. Already, a dozen kids — and a few of their dads — had drawn numbers for sides.

The girls were pumped. They were both on their dad’s team. They wore smiles, wide as a greening Iowa farm field all aglow under a golden sunset. Trouble was, neither of the girls had worn the right footwear for a game of kickball. They were wearing flip flops. How would they kick the ball without hurting their little toes?

I could see the girls whispering, considering their options behind home plate. Maybe they could curl their toes for the kick and brace for a bit of the pain, which would surely come. Or perhaps they could kick the ball with the side of a foot. Or maybe they’d just have to walk away from the game entirely.

That’s when a young man on the team said he’d kick on their behalf. They wouldn’t have to do what they wouldn’t be able to do on their own. He would substitute for them, saving them the pain. He would be their pinch-kicker.

And they could still run the bases, all the way home.

I watched it all unfold from my seat in the dugout. And through the chain-link fence, I could see it clear as day, how God did the same for us:

We came unprepared, and no matter what options we could have considered, there was really no good option at all. Except for Christ.

Without a pinch-hitter, we’d never get to run free.

Let’s face it: We’d never even get to play.

But Christ stepped up to the plate, stepped in on our behalf. And because of the greatest substitutionary act known to humankind, we can run. And can you feel it now? How that wind whips through your hair as you round the bases, as the moon rises up, up, up over your small self?

And you know, it’s the only way you ever could get there, the only way you could make it all the way home.

And I believe in you, how you’re gonna make it all the way home.

Photo credit

During 2013, dozens of talented writers are joining me to cheer you on in your storytelling. These guest-writers will share a few helpful words with you right here every Tuesday night, to encourage you as you #TellHisStory. (Come back after midnight to link up your God Story by clicking here.)

And now, I’m delighted to introduce you to author Kimberlee Conway Ireton. 

Copycat

Susan Patron, Newbery Award-winning author of The Higher Power of Lucky, once said the best piece of writing advice she’d ever received was to choose a book she loved and write it. “The book I wished I’d written,” she said, “was Sarah, Plain and Tall, so I got out my copy and started typing. I copied the whole thing. I wrote Sarah, Plain and Tall!”

Since hearing Ms. Patron tell this story, I have typed or hand-copied countless poems, prose passages, chapters from novels, and short stories that I admire. I’ve found this a powerful way to become a better writer. Every time I copy out a piece of great writing, its words, flowing from eye to brain to hand, become my own. As I tease out the reason behind the author’s choice of this word, that sentence structure, this punctuation, I expand my personal store of writing and story-telling techniques, giving me more words, more options from which to draw in my own writing.

So let me invite you to choose a piece of writing you love—you know, the one you return to again and again—and start typing.

Your turn: What piece of writing do you return to again and again?

Kimberlee Conway Ireton is a mother of four and the author of The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year. You can follow her on Twitter (@kconwayireton) or friend her on Facebook.

It’s all looked a little impossible lately. It’s not just the lists and the stacks and the deadlines, though there are plenty of those.

There’s more: people we love hurt. We hurt, heart-deep. Friends are staring down mean diagnoses and long roads and uncertain tomorrows.

Lydia knows some of it, because she’s 11 and she reads the back of church bulletins with the long prayer lists. She hears my sides of phone conversations, and reads headlines over my shoulder. So at night, when the moon rises, we talk about it. She pulls up the covers under her chin, and I could tell by the quiver in her voice that she feels like life has had handed out one too many lemons.

“It all looks so … impossible.”

And sometimes, she admits, it makes you want to give up praying. I nod my head in the dark, because I’ve felt that feeling.

But I told her right then: When you want to throw in the towel, throw your problems on a nail instead.

Which is what we did — and what we do, every night and every morning and every noon. We prayed, tossing our worries on Calvary nails.

I tucked her in, then walked out of her room in the dark, and stepped right onto the truth.  It was a tiny spike — long lost from our set of Easter resurrection eggs — poking my foot hard. It was buried in the deep carpet fibers of her bedroom. (That says a lot about my vacuuming regimen around here, and it says even more about my Christ.)

Right in the dark, the truth hit me hard.

Three nails did the hardest work, rescuing us from our Eden-rooted past, giving us hope for our present, and eternally securing our futures.

And just think: our Risen Savior didn’t leave us as orphans. He filled us with His Spirit, so that we could accomplish even greater things.

In Christ, nothing is impossible. As the Body of Christ, we are a part of Team Possible.

For every affliction, restriction, addiction or bit of friction in your life, there is one holy benediction: “It is finished.”

Through Christ and His Christ, the unimaginable becomes imaginable.

The impossible becomes possible.

God knows the unknown, and sees the unforeseen.

He holds all things together, and fastened Himself to a tree as the greatest exclamation mark on the greatest act known to humankind.

Wherever you’re going, He is already there.

That’s what I was thinking when a woman was trying to fit the microphone headset over my ear. It wasn’t fitting right. And the audience was waiting as we fiddled with that contraption.

“It just. won’t. fit,” she whispered.

This one unhelpful thought pulsed through my mind:  ”What if I don’t fit?”

My turn had come to deliver a message of hope to a room full of women.  As she bent and twisted the microphone to make it fit over my ear, I stood up front with a pit in my stomach, looking across the room at all these faces. I inhaled deeply and let my breath out in one long stream of air, wondering if the whole room could see the way that my heart beat hard and fast, beat like it might just jump out of my chest and run out the front door.

No one in the room had claws or sharp teeth. Except for one:

Hi. May I introduce you to my fanged Inner Critic, the one who whispers: “What will people think of you?”

Ms. Inner Critic is the one who tells me I’ll fall or fail. She’s the one who, as a child, made sure I felt like I the nerd, the loser, the geek. And she also knows how to pick on adult women: She makes us look across rooms or auditoriums, and then tells us we don’t belong here.

Maybe you already know Ms. Inner Critic. Maybe she beats hard against your chest when you’re standing at a podium, at a computer keyboard, at the overwhelming list on your kitchen counter. Maybe she mocks you when you look out across your church sanctuary, your cubicle, or your Facebook feed, where it looks like everyone else has the world be the tail. She makes you think that everyone else is winning, and you’ve got a big L on your forehead.

She makes you think you don’t belong.

Your Inner Critic can be a noisy, belligerent bully.  Mine can, too. I have heard her accusations before I publish blog posts, write book chapters, parent my girls, or look in the mirror at my own reflection.

She’ll tell us that there’s something better for our life — if we’d only try harder, get cuter, make the Honor Roll, tell a better joke, drive a better car, shrink into a smaller pair of jeans.

And now, Ms. Inner Critic was trying to stage a protest inside of me, entering in through a door of insecurity that I had left cracked open.

Over the previous hour, three other accomplished speakers had stook at the front of this very room. All three of them — soul-beautiful with anointed words — moved with grace across the stage. They didn’t use notes. They all appeared to speak with a confidence that I didn’t feel on the inside.

But me? Well, I had my whole talk written out, would probably stay close to my notes, and at this point, it didn’t look like I’d be able to wear that cool, rock-star-diva microphone headset.

“It’s just not fitting,” the woman whispered.

Someone put a microphone in my hands.

And then a funny thing happened on the way to the podium.

I walked toward the center of the stage, and with my purple binder under my arm, and I could feel it happening. It wasn’t my heart that ran out the front door.  It was the Inner Critic.

I felt a sudden sense of peace, that God could reveal a bit of His glory through my shaky voice, my typed-out notes, my quirky style. And I stood there, silently for a moment, scanning the faces. They weren’t here to criticize or jeer.

They were here to receive. They were on my side. And they believed that God could speak through one simple farm wife from northwest Iowa.

Looking back, I have a sense of what it might mean for any of us to really fit in: We don’t do any one any favors by trying to squeeze into our idea of what fits. We need only to be clothed in the right-sized life that God designed for us.

And because the over-the-ear microphone didn’t fit that night, I discovered that I had in my hands what fit just right for me –

I lifted a handheld microphone and spoke.

I prop my feet on the rim of the boat, with a fishing pole resting between bare toes — even though Dad has told me since I was ten years old that no one’s ever going to catch a fish with her feet.

If Dad sees me trying to achieve the impossible with my toes, he doesn’t say so. Maybe it’s because he’s hypnotized by the lulling voice of creation–these hands of nature clapping their praise.

Night is marching in here. To the west, the sun sinks below pine, streaking a reflection like orange sherbet melting atop the water.

We’ve spent hours out here, and that’s what we ought to do with our time: spend hours. It’s not wasting time; it’s spending it, investing really.

It’s true: I get the most out of my summer vacation by “doing” the least. I get the most of my summer vacation by simply being — by simply “spending” hours.

“Spend the afternoon, you can’t take it with you.” That’s what Annie Dillard said.

* * *

This is the magic of vacation, the reason we all need to get away: we find ourselves by losing ourselves completely.

Yes, This is how the lost get found. I look up at the sky, now dressing itself in twinkling jewels. The moon rises — a perfect circle cutting a hole in the navy.

I breathe it in deep — this moment. I’m spending time.

Just.
Spending.
Time.

Something tugs the line, so I reel, but the only thing dangling from my hook is a wad of weeds. And I’m okay with that. Because I’ve been hooked myself. I’ve been caught and captured by the Creator.

I flip open the bail and flick my tipped hook back onto a reflecting monastery that carries a quiet peace on the ripples. With a “plop,” the lure sinks under the surface. I catch a few crappie, but I wouldn’t have cared if I hooked even one.

For I’m perfectly smitten. And by the sound of things, the rest of the world is, too.

Jesus said as much: He said that if his followers fell silent, the stones would cry out.

And on a Lund boat, 200 feet from shore, I’m pretty sure the stones were a-singin’, along with the rest of us.

“Listen to that!” Dad says. “Those loons work pretty hard to get airborne.”

Over his left shoulder, a loon is beating its wings on the water, lifting its body and feathered praise higher. To me, it sounds like applause for Heaven.

I hear it in the ripples, too, as they clap, clap, clap against the boat — polite applause from tea-party ladies.

Earlier that day, on shore, we’d spotted three woodpeckers, drumming on a wizened, hollowed tree like hard-hatted men with jackhammers. At Mom’s ruby-filled feeder, a hummingbird beat his wings. (I read that they flap their little wings something like 53 times per second.) I couldn’t hear the sound, but oh, imagine the cacophony if you could magnify it!

When the breeze picked up that day, I heard a stadium of crisp praise, roaring through leaves and limbs.

The Good Book says the mountains and hills will burst into song, and that the trees of the field will clap their hands.

So, I’ll join with the earth and sing my praises, too. Can you hear us smiling here?

This is what our happy sounds like:

Three ways that we get the most out of our summer vacations:

WE LET OURSELVES GET LOST.

This is how we find ourselves again … by getting lost. We don’t wear watches, or carry schedules, or use cell-phones, if we can help it. In this way, we slow down enough to experience the beauty around us. We lose track of time, and we lose track of worry, and no one has ever fussed if someone wants to sleep in.

WE ARE OK WITH MISSED OPPORTUNITIES.

We often have a list of things we want to do on vacation, but we don’t worry if we miss some of them. Rather, we make sure we don’t rush through the moment we’re in. If we are so harried in taking in all the sights, we won’t really see any of them. Plus, it gives us a reason to come back again!

WE TRY NOT TO FORGET TO HEAR THE SOUNDS, WHEN WE SEE THE SIGHTS.

We love our vacations Up North, at a lake where my parents spend their summers. I sit outside, on the end of the dock, with my eyes close, and count the sounds … the whispers in the oaks and pines, the rustling birch, the loon’s cry, and the rippling cathedral of a quiet lake. And I join the chorus, feeling praise rise up in the heart.

WHERE’S YOUR FAVORITE SUMMER VACATION SPOT? Do you have any tips to share, on how to get the most out of vacation?

During 2013, dozens of talented writers are joining me to cheer you on in your storytelling. These guest-writers will share a few helpful words with you right here every Tuesday night, to encourage you as you #TellHisStory. (Come back after midnight to link up your God Story by clicking here.)

And now, I’m delighted to introduce you, once again, to author Billy Coffey. Be sure to enter the drawing for a chance to win his new novel. 

Writing Naked

I write in terror. I have to talk myself into bravery with every sentence, sometimes every syllable –Cynthia Ozick

I took exactly one class in writing. It was about fifteen years ago at the community college and was taught by a real published author whose name I cannot recall. But she was published, and as far as I was concerned that was all the credentials she needed.

The first class turned out to be the most useful. That’s not to say the instruction given in the proceeding eleven weeks of the course wasn’t useful. It was. But that first night alone was worth the money.

The twenty or so people in the class formed a semi-circle around the professor, who stood in behind a wooden podium that was much more intimidating than she. We sat at attention, notebooks ready, eager to have our heads filled with the hidden secrets of literary success.

“Tell me,” she said, “what does one need to write?”

The more outgoing among the class were quick with suggestions:

“Time.”

“Perseverance.”

“Skill.”

“Connections.” (That one was met with a nervous chuckle from the rest of the class.)

“Practice.”

Each was met with an approving nod and so was written down by everyone, myself included. But that really wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“Those are good suggestions,” she said, “but you’re leaving the most important aspect out. Anyone?”

No one.

“Courage,” she said.

I didn’t really understand that and snickered under my breath. Courage? Soldiers needed courage. Cops needed courage. EMTs and stunt men and bullfighters. But writers? Sitting on your butt and typing on a keyboard did not take courage.

“There are some who might disagree with that,” she said—and to this day I swear she looked at me when she said it—“and I understand. You disagree because you’re writing with your clothes on. By the time you leave here, you’ll be writing naked.”

I’ll admit I almost walked out then. I’d heard about kooky writing classes given by kooky professors who did some pretty strange things in the name of “art.” I was afraid if I stuck around I’d end up dressed in a blue tracksuit with a cup of Kool-Aid in my hand because a comet was passing by to take me to heaven.

I stayed in my seat on the whim she was speaking metaphorically.

“There is no greater fear than to face a blank page,” she said. “It mocks and threatens. It challenges you. Give it power, and it will eat you alive. Face it clothed, and you will fail. The only way to beat the blank page is to attack it naked.”

Twelve of the twenty students raised their hands.

“Wait, wait,” she said, moving her hands in a downward motion. “No, I’m not speaking literally. But I’m not joking, either. Let me ask you something else. Why do people write?”

More hands in the air, which she chose to ignore.

“People write because they must. Because there is a story inside them that is meant to be shared with the world. But having that story inside you doesn’t make you a writer. How you tell that story does. And you tell it through honesty.”

She told us to put our pens down and just listen.

“Writers fail because they come to the page fully clothed. They adorn themselves with fanciful plots and layer themselves with complicated character development. They use flowery prose and words you have to look up in the dictionary. They do this not to impress their readers, but to keep their readers at arm’s length. They’re afraid. Afraid to bare their souls and inject themselves into their work. For that they are cowards.

“Don’t simply tell me that faith saves you, tell me how it almost failed you, too. Don’t tell me about love, speak of your passion. Don’t tell me you’re hurt, let me see your heart breaking. I don’t want to see your talent on the page, I want to see your blood. Dare to be naked before your readers. Because that is writing, and everything else is worthless crap.”

I’ll always remember that. In fact, written on an index card taped to my lamp are these two words—Be Naked. Because she was right, that’s what writing is all about. Fiction or non, poetry or devotional, funny or serious, it doesn’t matter. Our calling is still the same:

To bare ourselves so we may be the mirror the world holds to itself.

Billy Coffey’s critically acclaimed books combine rural  Southern charm with a vision far beyond the ordinary. And this  week, we’re celebrating the release of his most recent novel,  “When Mockingbirds Sing,” by giving away a copy of the book.

To enter the giveaway:

Simply tell us the name of anyone in your life who has inspired you to write or to live life more courageously. This is a drawing open to all of you — not only the writers in our community. I will draw a winner at random by Friday afternoon and notify you by email. If you share on Twitter or Facebook, let me know in the comment box. Each “share” earns extra entries.

Here’s the trailer for Billy’s book. (Subscribers can click here.)

That’s what the event-organizer on the telephone asked me. And would I come to tell an audience?

I’ve written millions of words over the years, depositing them into thousands of news stories, hundreds of  blog posts, a few dozen magazine articles and most recently, one book.

But if I had to pick just fifteen minutes worth of words? One final time to say what really mattered? NOT an easy task.

I’ve come to learn this much, though: the very best words will probably never make it to the front page, might never lead a newscast, and may or may not find their way between the covers of a book.

The most important words — the ones that can really change everything — are the ones we speak to God, to our children, our grandchildren, our hurting neighbor, the grieving widow, … and the man who asked me for my hand in marriage. We have a choice: We can speak condemnation or celebration into the hearts of others — and into the hearts of our very own selves.

What if — when the girls interrupt my carefully executed plan today with another request to braid hair or paint fingernails, while I’m trying to write that 15-minute talk — what if my last words were ones that were laced with irration rather than affection?

If I knew today’s words were my last, would I:

• harp about the lost library books,
• complain about this never-ending rain,
• or lob muttered annoyances when I look at myself wearing last summer’s capris?

Or would I speak words to others — and to myself — that echo God’s habitual chorus over us:

• You are utterly cherished,
• divinely loved,
• wildly graced by a King.

That’s Truth that could change absolutely everything.

So this is what I’d want to say:

1 – You, my friend, are more loved than you ever dared imagine … loved enough that your Savior died two kinds of deaths: one that brought Him to this world and another that saved us from it.

2 – You are enough. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. We all face some really big “not enoughs” in this life. Those not-enoughs are fierce and stubborn. Be stubborn-er.

3 – Live life forward, but know that you might only be able to understand it backwards. That’s what Søren Kierkegaard said, and I know it to be true. Some folks say, “never look back,” but I have come to believe that the rear-view mirror offers us a unique perspective to see where God was at work all along.

4  - We could simply exist, or we could actually live. Pick the Living Part. And you don’t have to find out you’re dying to choose the better way.

5 – Small is the new big. The world says super-size your order, your platform, your bank account, your clout, your voice. But Jesus says, “Humble yourself.” Let’s all be like Zacchaeus: The only reason he climbed higher was so that he could get a better look at Jesus.

6 - Let. It. Go. When we belong to Christ, honest to goodness, we are free to make mistakes. I’m preaching this one to myself every day, and I might have to say it until I breathe my last. But I want to live secure in Whose I am, rather than who I’m trying so hard to be.

7 - Get thyself outdoors. God brushes earth alive, coloring it with proof that He is infinitely grand and good. Sure, I find God in my Bible, at my country church, in my messed-up little heart … but I also find Him performing magic in the out of doors. His world reminds me that the steadfast Lord is shouting down through the universe: “You are loved. You have nothing to fear today. For I am with You. I know what you need today, child.  And as a bonus, did you happen to see what I made for you this morning?”

8 – Grace is for real. God really does love us no matter what, and He really can’t stop loving us. You can’t out-love God, and you can’t out-run Him. He loves us through every detour, wrong turn, ugly choice — even the dumb stuff we are yet to do. Yep. I needed to know that today.

9 – Get honest. It makes the rest of us know we’re not alone, and not as crazy as we thought we were up in our own little noggins.

10 – There really is a finish line. And God is already there. Just think, when you cross that line, your Maker might just take you by the arm and whisper in your ear, “Come with me. I have some people I want you to meet. Your life made such a difference.”

I am speaking tonight in Orange City about “Last Words.” Could you say a prayer for me? Microphones and podiums make my hands and heart tremble!

YOUR TURN: What would you say if you were given one last opportunity to speak?

If you’re visiting from Ann Voskamp’s blog today, a warm hello to you. I wish I could reach through the screen and shake your hand, maybe even hug you. It’s a pleasure to meet you, and I want to whisper this in your ear: You matter to God, you matter to people. And you matter to me.

I’m the wife of an Iowa farmer, the mother of two girls, a writer, a storyteller and a woman who believes that it really is all about Jesus.  I marvel at God’s unrelenting grace for people who mess up – stumbling sinners like me, who have been made whole through Christ.

There’s always, always a spot at my table for you.

(I’d love it if you would consider subscribing to my posts. Subscribing is free. Subscribe by clicking here.)

And for my regular readers, I’d love it if you would join me over on Ann’s porch today, up on her farm in Canada? We’re waiting for you.

This one here? This is what you need to know when it seems like you’re facing one trouble after the next, and when it seems like you might just drown… (Read more here.)

And I do. I devour old words.

This is the best meal I’ve had in a long time. It’s one of those days when a second-helping isn’t enough, when you know that a soul can emaciate without this. Sometimes, it’s feast or famine around here with the Scriptures. And I know it’s not right, but that’s the truth. I need a steady diet; I know that.

I’ve had this particular meal of words before, but I hunch over top of these words, like I’ve never tasted them before. You know that feeling? Like it’s the first time you laid eyeballs on some passage, and – pow — it smacks you somewhere under your ribs, to rattle your soul.

These were the words-like-thunder that did it to me:

“In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.”
– John 1:1

These words pierce me through, all over again, marinate on the inside, pour over me.

And I’m smitten with the One who crafted these lines,
fulfilled these lines,
was and
IS these very lines.

The Word was God.

What am I tasting here? What is this?

Why is He called the Word?

I consider reading the study notes or consulting the commentaries, but that would be like asking for the recipe before really taking a bite. I want to test my palate first, want to talk it over with the Cook. Want to savor every bite.

Right now, I don’t need Google; I need God.
I don’t need commentary; I need Christ. 

I light a candle, and in shimmering light, something flames up in me, too. The Word is living and active, and I want to plumb its depths.

With words.

I grab a pencil and a scrap of paper.  I doodle, swirling sloppy loops and letters and names. Every word I write is a Jesus word: Messiah, Creator, Alpha and Omega.

I write the names of God.

With every pencil stroke, I taste more of the Word. I’m seeing it come together like a picture, how you can’t separate the God-man from the Word, the Logos – λόγος. With words, God spoke all Creation into being and wrote His Son into the story in an unexpected twist –

The Word became flesh.

Word became man, with tear-ducts and fingertips and wisdom teeth and sinews and DNA and fingerprints and elbows that could skin, and tonsils that could swell. He became man with shoulders broad enough to carry a cross up a hill.

Logos became a person, and I press lead to paper imagining the absurdity of a King wanting to exchange Heaven for this rancorous place.

I shake my head, awed and grateful. I write more words: Yeshua. Savior. Sustainer. Perfect Sacrifice. Bread of Life. Is there no end to who He is?

Word, who existed in the beginning, swirled through the cosmos down to Earth. And somewhere on Earth a mama whispered a word: “Emmanuel.”

I scratch that name down, too.

I write more words, all the names for God that I can think of, and still it’s not enough. There just aren’t enough words to define the undefinable. … But on the page, I see it clear –

He’s coming more alive to me.

See now, these ancient words? See them here?

They are more than letters dropped on pages.

These words are a Person.

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
– John 1:14

What name of God means most to you today? 

During 2013, dozens of talented writers are joining me to cheer you on in your storytelling. These guest-writers will share a few helpful words with you right here every Tuesday night, to encourage you as you #TellHisStory. (Come back after midnight to link up your God Story by clicking here.)

And now, I’m delighted to introduce you to a great writer and very dear friend, Lyla Lindquist. 

I suppose I could just start by lying on the floor.

I’ve done that, you know. Left the desk, got down flat on my back on the floor in my office, and stared at the ceiling. I went back to my chair and wrote the words, “Lying on the floor is no way to write an article.”

For many of us, the thing that often puts us flat on our writing backs is simply beginning. We stare at the blank page or blinking cursor, immobilized for lack of the first word, when oftentimes if we would just write the first word — any first word — it would be like the little Dutch boy pulling his finger out of the dike. The words will trickle out, maybe even begin to rush.

An editor I work with is known to say, “Just begin.” Take hold of an action or image and just begin to put words on the page. For me, sometimes that’s beginning with 20 pushups, a roller skate, or a blue marble. Or, yes, lying on the floor.

Deadline looming and past my bedtime, I felt pretty foolish that night. But then I looked up and saw cobwebs and shadows playing the corner of the ceiling, sculpted from the harsh light of a single naked lightbulb. The cobwebs gave way to an old woman’s wispy white hair, the light sockets to her hollow eyes, and before long I had what I’d gone to the floor over: a few pages worth of words on the page and an article ready to publish.

Look around you. Do a few pushups. Lie on the floor. What do you see? Where will you begin?

Lyla Willingham Lindquist is a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. When she’s not crunching numbers or scaling small buildings, you can find her at Tweetspeak Poetry, where she is an editor, or designing websites at The Willingham Enterprise.

YOUR TURN: So, let’s try it. Lyla instructs us: “Look around you. Do a few pushups. Lie on the floor. What do you see? Where will you begin?”