Kim Patton

               It’s been said that being a mother is like living your life with your heart outside of your body, walking around. When motherhood began for me at the tender age of 15, I didn’t know my heart very well, let alone the treacherous path of parenting I would lead.        When the angel Gabriel appeared to me, I shuddered at the sight of his piercing eyes and voice solid like the trunk of the tree against my back.        “Mary… Do not be afraid for you have found favor with God” (Luke 1:30).        My hands shook wildly, and my breath caught in my throat as he told me what would come to be.        “You will conceive and give birth to a son. He will be great and will be given the throne of David.”        When I gently questioned his statement, I heard the rush of his wings reacting and his voice strengthened. ...

                I watch as the 19-year-old slowly opens his notebook to read his poem to ten strangers, daring the possibility of critique. He is new. I have only seen him twice before. As his lips move, his heart speaks one turn of a phrase after another, the rhythm of the piece never ceasing to touch a depth that we all, his readers, feel. I hear his words but dig around for their meaning that goes beyond surface definition.        We are a Writer’s Group that meets twice each month to chisel each other’s talents, encouraging the labor-intensive process that comes with our common goal of becoming better writers. We have all set other things in our lives aside to focus on the task of putting words on paper and then reading them aloud, releasing the white doves into the expansive sky.        The new kid reads, and his art unfolds like a vulnerable flower, and we gently touch its petals. We take...