I’m fairly certain that this is the first time I’ve ever participated in the mass ritual that is Throwback Thursday. LAST ONE ON THE BOAT BRUNSTETTER STRIKES AGAINNNN!!!! Here is an old picture that I love, that I rescued from the depths of my closet at my parents house, where it was buried beneath old poems and Highlights magazines and boxes of handwritten notes from Julien passed between Biology and Ping Pong. I now display it in my own house.

I’m receiving my very first very own bible from Pastor Mark Corts, who to me, at this age, was some sort of Granddad / Santa / God hybrid: kind and eternal and giving. I felt SO SPECIAL and it was not even because my headband matched my sweater matched the subtle stripes in my skirt. Because I was old enough to be given my own book with my own name in it.

While my own faith fluctuates and changes moment to moment and is still being Found (does this ever stop?), this bible and picture stand for  a constant; a thing ingrained in me since I was young. Noise swirls and settles around it, but it never moves.