I was born and raised on Colorado’s Front Range. Most of my life has been spent looking toward the mountains, breathing in their grandeur, breathing out their sense of calm strength. The peaks are the playground of the sun on a snowy winter’s morning, pink and crisp with her rising; on summer afternoons they invite the lightening to jump and dance and throw the thunder back down into the echoing valleys; and in autumn they clothe themselves with the brilliant yellow of aspen groves. Although I’ve lived in the Midwest and the East Coast, the mountains are my home.
When I was in elementary school, my parents moved the family – all six children – to Germany, near Heidelberg. We lived between two small towns and went to German schools. That experience gave me a sense of the larger world. Summers spent on my uncle’s farm in Iowa, four years of college on the banks of the Mississippi and countless hours with my husband’s family in Minnesota helped me appreciate all that the Midwest has to offer. The first five years of our marriage we lived far from family, first in Pennsylvania and then in the beltway of D.C. Our love of history, especially the period of the Civil War, was nourished in museums and on battlefields.
I’ve worked as a waitress, an administrative assistant for a litigation specialist, a software technical writer, as the Director of Liturgy and Faith Formation in a large Catholic parish and now at Diocesan office under a most amazing bishop. Each job has brought me joy and an appreciation for all God’s people.
For the past thirty-four years my husband and I have lived in the shadow of Pike’s Peak: America’s mountain, made famous by Katherine Lee Bates. It is here where we’ve raised our three children and built careers. One son and his family live close by, another son and his family live in Texas and our daughter and her husband live in Maine. We delight in our travels to visit our children and grandchildren.
When I lift my eyes to the mountains, unlike the psalmist I am not afraid of the enemy who might appear; rather, I am reminded of the immenseness and constancy of God’s love and of the incredible beauty of all God’s creation. My help comes from the Lord. 