Preorder Here: A Spirituality of Staying in a Culture of Leaving (Convergent Books, 2025) and receive a free gift emailed to your inbox right now: a hand illustrated workbook to guide you through the holidays with full presence and joy!
What I’ve also witnessed is that the FOMO, restlessness, and disappointment we’re trying to escape always come along for the ride.
Come along with me on a different kind of journey, not to a new destination, but planting your feet more firmly right where you find yourself now.
Here pushes back against our age of constant reinvention and the cultural message that we should do whatever it takes to get where we want to go. Instead, its message is the opposite: stay. Stay right here and cultivate the immense potential and beauty that lies within your current circumstances.
Braiding personal narrative and spiritual reflection, Here inspires readers to both embrace and transform their circumstances through commitment and stability—in order that they might find true contentment right where they are.
A special feature of the book are reflection questions at the end of each chapter to actively engage with the ideas of the book or to use with groups.
Most of us get really anxious and frazzled during the holidays because of the overwhelming number of opportunities and an immense amount of pressure to be festive, social, and create Instagram worthy holiday homes. We get so overwhelmed by all the events and pressures that come January 2nd, we realize we weren’t fully present to the season.
On the contrary, it’s filled with reflection questions that will help you unearth what really matters to you so that you move through the holidays in a way that feels most aligned with who you are and what you really want. What makes this guide even more special is that it’s filled with all my own artwork that I’ve been working on for months and months. I find that handmade illustrations elevate the beauty of books and journals so it meant so much to me to make these illustrations for you.
One of my very first essays, “What Do 90-Somethings Regret Most” was read and circulated almost one million times.
I’m a graduate of Yale Divinity School, where I fell in love with husband, James, and deepened my interest in contemplative theology and mystical spirituality that informs much of my work now. So many of us point to our external circumstances as the causes of both our contentment and discontentment when the little known gem of wisdom I steadily discovered is that it works the other way around: that we hold the power and tools to transform our circumstances from the inside out.
All of this is shared with you in my book, Here: A Spirituality of Staying in a Spirituality of Leaving.
When I’m not pastoring a church, I’m usually writing or spending time with my family in my beloved hometown of Claremont, California.
Purchase your book through the links below and then come back here and receive your free “Intention Setting Guidebook for the Holidays and New Year.”
