Archives of Inspiration

Saying “I Do:” Anna + Chazz Upton

You’ve found the person with whom you want to spend your time as you live through this life, and you’ve made it official: You’re getting married. Congratulations! Now, it’s time for planning your wedding.  Here, five couples with ties to Southeast Missouri share the unique details of their journey of saying yes to each other […]
4 years ago

Saying “I Do:” Brooke + John Schnurbusch

You’ve found the person with whom you want to spend your time as you live through this life, and you’ve made it official: You’re getting married. Congratulations! Now, it’s time for planning your wedding.  Here, five couples with ties to Southeast Missouri share the unique details of their journey of saying yes to each other […]
4 years ago

Saying “I Do:” Brynna Downing + Tyler Boardman

You’ve found the person with whom you want to spend your time as you live through this life, and you’ve made it official: You’re getting married. Congratulations! Now, it’s time for planning your wedding.  Here, five couples with ties to Southeast Missouri share the unique details of their journey of saying yes to each other […]
4 years ago

Saying Yes to Forgiveness

By Sarah Geringer It only took me 20 years to learn this lesson: Saying yes to forgiveness every day in your marriage is a prescription for peace. How I wish I had started practicing this in year one — no, week one — of our marriage. I would have experienced much less heartache and much […]
4 years ago

Going Home Again

By Phoebe Pohlman It’s strange the things I can talk myself into if I try hard enough. I will suppress my own true and deep desires to make my life fit a version of something I think I want.  I began questioning my carefully-crafted plans of moving away from Southeast Missouri to begin my teaching […]
4 years ago

Say Yes: Here’s a place to start

Yes. Such a simple, yet powerful word.  Maybe you said it when the right one asked for your hand in marriage. Maybe you said it when your soul told you to walk away from the one who wasn’t right. Big, small, momentous and inconsequential, how we use the word yes can shape life as we […]
4 years ago

ritual: letter from the editor

Χάος is one of my favorite Greek words. Not only is it fun to say, pronounced from the back of the throat kind of like hawking up a loogie, but it also translates to “chaos,” and describes perfectly one of my favorite Greek phenomenons: recess. At the school I taught at in Athens, when the […]
4 years ago

Part of the Process

The way we farm matters. By Emily Scifers  As dawn starts to creep over the horizon, I pull my aching body out of bed. Yesterday’s planting took a toll. I tell myself not to skip my morning walk around the field. It loosens me up before I really get to work. Spring training on the […]
4 years ago

letter from the editor, Spring 2021

“I want an adult to tell me it’s hard to be a teenager.” My friend Erin, an incredible young person, said this to me over the summer. One of her teachers had told her class they should enjoy their time now as teens before they become adults, because it’s the easiest life will ever be. […]
4 years ago

Art for You

The water closes in, threatening to take me down.  Overwhelmed by salt and sand, I find myself Splashing. Gasping. Fighting.   Struggling to survive.  Waves of self-doubt crash over my head.  Anxiety and fear swirl around my feet. What if I’m not enough?  What if I’m too much?    My eyes dart left, then right. […]
4 years ago