About Nagoonberry

In the autumn of 2009, my partner and I took a cross-country trip via Amtrak, riding the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago.  I love this photo, which Liesl took just outside Seattle, as a metaphor for what I’m writing about on this blog.

Nagoonberry is about journeys.  My life journey, but also our journey as human beings learning to live together in community.

Nagoonberry is about looking out the window, seeing what there is to see.  Every day there’s something new to notice, something different to wonder about.

Nagoonberry is about introspection, both personal and communal. Who am I? Who are we? The focus is soft, a reflection in a window, not in a mirror. Evocative, not definitive.

Nagoonberry honors the winding road. The shirt I’m wearing in this photo says, “Not all who wander are lost” (a quote from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring). I often feel like I’ve gotten off track (pun intended). But I always come back to believing that every unintended detour enriches life immeasurably.

I write a lot about religion. I grew up in a “closed” Plymouth Brethren meeting.  I became a Presbyterian minister in 1998. In March 2012, I was received into preliminary fellowship as a Unitarian Univeralist minister—a process that took nearly seven years. Like I said, a winding road.

I also write about creating a sustainable life–everything from making bread and yogurt, to finding sources for goat milk and local eggs, to herding sheep and learning to sew.

And then there are some posts that are just about life, so I label them “living here and now.”  Just the view from the window as the world slides by.

Welcome, and thanks for visiting.

–Heather Christensen