Exploring the Jungle —Mary Lott

The Norfolk pine was well over 6 feet tall. It was top-heavy and too big for the pot. I didn’t have the energy or strength to deal with it. Thankfully, we’d hired a young man, Gari, to work as our gardener as he went to school. Gari’s mother tongue was…

One candle in our Advent wreath is lit before our family’s devotion service begins. Together we sing, “O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” This hymn causes us to remember God’s work and to anticipate God’s kingdom of the future, when we believe the world will be complete.

I heard the music of the calliope before I saw the magical kaleidoscope of colors. Fairs always have their smells: cotton candy, hot dogs, and hamburgers. But my 7-year-old self was enchanted by the merry-go-round. Soon the gaily-colored wooden horses were going up and down as we were twirled around…

I started trembling when I saw the tribal warrior approach with a wicked long spear. Yikes! How can I get out of here? I looked around the room and realized there was no escape. The man and his henchman were in the room with me, while reinforcements stood just outside…

It was totally dark, and I couldn’t remember where I was. I was nice and comfortable in this soft bed with its squishy pillows. I blinked my eyes and remembered: I was traveling back to the U.S. to see my dermatologist. I was in the Ambassador Hotel at Singapore’s Changi…

I sleepily scratched a bug bite on my arm. It felt a bit different from a mosquito bite — perhaps it was from a red ant or a spider. I rolled over and went back to sleep. That afternoon there was a sore the diameter of a pencil on my…

“It rained and it rained and it rained.” That’s the beginning of the ninth chapter of A.A. Milne’s “The House at Pooh Corner.” Piglet tells himself that he’d never seen so much rain in his life. I felt a lot like Piglet when I went home in Sentani, Papua, Indonesia,…

Waking groggily, the patient stretched his arm out from under the covers. Hitting the “stop” button on his phone, he groaned. It was time to eat and take his next dose of anti-nausea medicine. After giving it 20 minutes to start working, he took his malaria medicine. To get the…

My breath was short and quick. Pokey, my dog, jumped up on the bed and licked my face. It didn’t help. Thoughts continued to swirl through my brain, not settling down into one focus. I was developing a panic attack. Focusing my gaze on one spot on the far wall,…

My husband and I went through our checklist. “Do you have a week’s supply of your inhaler?” We try to keep supplies on hand, just in case. We have contingency plans for disasters, such as an earthquake. We’re ready to shelter in place or “bug out,” depending on the circumstances.