In case you missed it, (and I’ve been terrible about updating the blog- you’ll find most of my content on Instagram), my debut memoir was birthed into the world October 26, 2021 Wanderlost: Falling from Grace and Finding Mercy in All the Wrong Places A coming-of-age travel memoir that probes thorny spiritual questions while taking…
Hanami: What an ancient Japanese tradition can teach us about Covid-19
It had only been a few days, but the collective tension in my house was a pressure cooker about to blow. “We need to get out,” my husband said with glazed eyes. He’s been working for the Pentagon remotely from home amid helping me homeschool three kids, breaking up fights, dolling out snacks and assembling…
Here we go, Rona
I’m keeping a daily journal to document our new, bizarre lifestyle. It helps me feel a little less crazy to process what’s happening in words. Here’s my entry from Monday, March 16th… I wake up feeling terrible for the sixth day in a row. My throat is dry and my head feels like a swollen…
Stumbling through a City of Darkness
“There’s something in the air, isn’t there?” I ask Patryce, my Lyft driver. “Yes, girl, YES! Oh my God, what is it?” she begins. It’s a cold, rainy night in Washington D.C., and I’m trying to get to a writer’s workshop across town in a Lyft cab because the trains are delayed. Nothing is functioning…
The Ghost Moth
This essay was originally published in SheLoves Magazine as Untangling My Twisted Theology of Creation It was the time of day in Bangkok when dirt and dust from sidewalk chalk covered my kids. With darkened faces, glowing eyes, and wild hair, they looked like creatures from another planet, doing loops on bikes in the shade…
The Christ-Consciousness of Anthony Bourdain
There’s a soup lady on my street in Bangkok whose soup is so nourishing it makes me cry. Anytime I am sick or in a funk, I head straight to her wheeled cart and take my place in line behind construction workers before ordering a steamy bowl of chicken and rice noodles in a rich…
A Travel Fail and Cambodian Breakfast Angels
For Christmas this year, my husband and I decide to forego getting gifts for each other and instead gifted our family a post-Christmas trip to Cambodia. Google maps estimates the drive to be six hours from our home in Bangkok to Siem Reap. Google maps is out of touch in this part of the world,…
Saint Patrick for Today
{A condensed, more polished version of this story can be read at Sojourners} The rain drums steadily on the windshield of our rental van as we drive through winding roads in the Irish countryside. The landscape alternates between dense forest and rocky clearings. Shades of green and grey stretch for miles. Our plans to…
‘Never Again’ is Upon us During Advent Season
{This article was first published in Sojourners on Dec 19, 2017.} It’s a cold November day in Amsterdam, and I’m realizing my 18-month-old daughter is not prepared for the biting wind. My “Bangkok baby” has only known hot, humid air, and so I do my best to wrap my scarf around the umbrella stroller, swaddling…
The River and the Imaginary Variable
I was raised on the banks of the Saline River in Benton, Arkansas. My “home” was a miniature distributary where the water was just calm and shallow enough to settle in cozily. My “food” was giant sycamore leaves I called fish. It was where I learned to tread water. It was where I caught the…
NATALIE TOON PATTON 