Getting Started

I want to write down my thoughts and reflections in a way that is meaningful to me and perhaps to someone else as well. I'm not sure about the whole thing of putting your personal musings out there in cyberspace, but I've been thinking about doing this for a while. So I'll give it a shot and see how it feels.

I chose An Ordinary Life as my blog name, because while ordinary is not necessarily a definitive word, it really describes how I've felt about my life over the past decade or so. And it's a term I've come to feel at home in, and own.

You could say that much of my life was lived in not-so-ordinary circumstances. I grew up in a mennonite home, the fifth child (fifth daughter) of seven. I spent 2 1/2 years in volunteer service in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. I was married for 14 1/2 years to my true soulmate, and for all but three of those years, we lived in an intentional Christian community in Jackson, Mississippi. I'm white. My husband was black. I have been a widow since 1998, following the sudden death of my husband from a heart attack. I have three amazing and beautiful children.

Since August 1998, I have been living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, being a mom and holding a nine-to-five job. In many ways, my present life seems disconnected to my previous experience, but it is full and it is rich...and it is ordinary.