December, December, a little more tender...
I'm trying to rest a lil' bit, y'all. Kind of succeeding?
I’ve been busy—too busy—for most of 2025. It’s been a blessed year, in which I found or built many monuments to treasure, if I ever reach a vantage point to look back. Might mess around and do a yearly wrap-up post later this month!
In the meantime, here are a couple of things coming up….
Better Things 5x5 Reading & Open Mic
I’m hosting Better Things, with the illustrious Michael Kleber-Diggs as guest co-host. If you’re worn out by shopping, or not-shopping, or despairing at the early dark or sudden snow, or wanting to find community outside your possibly problematic family, Better Things is a great cure! We’ve got community, and warmth, and some amazing features and an ASL-interpreted open mic and SNACKS! Stop on by if you can 🤗.
Fire Light - The Nature of Storytelling & Stories Behind the Menu
I’m thrilled to be a part of this event, hosted by Maggie’s Farm Theater and Stories Behind the Menu. I’m stretching some muscles I haven’t used a lot — telling a story rather than performing poetry — so if you can catch this, it’ll be a rare treat.
Thursday, December 4th, 6:30pm. Tickets are available online for $65; parking is free. Featured storytellers are Jim Bear Jacobs (the headliner), St. Louis Park Mayor Nadia Mohamed, Cutler Bennett, Max Lopez, Chaz Sandifer, and ya girl Davi Gray 😄. And there’s a tasting menu by Owamni Executive Sous Chef Dominique Miles 🤤. Legit night out if you can make it!
Fire Light - The Nature of Storytelling
A second iteration of this storytelling event, without the Stories Behind the Menu part (cheaper tickets, but no tasting menu).
Friday, December 12th, 7pm. Tickets are available online for $19; parking is free. Featured storytellers include Jim Bear Jacobs (the headliner), Cutler Bennett, Max Lopez, State Representative Larry Kraft, and ya girl Davi Gray 😄.
December BuckSlam
My favorite local poetry slam continues its monthly domination of Indeed Brewing’s back room (“The Ox”). I’ll be there!
I’ll leave you with a seasonally apposite excerpt from the book Sacred Fire, by Ronald Rolheiser (Bookshop link to Sacred Fire).
We can all be reached all the time. There never needs to be any silence and solitude in our lives. And so we end up as good people, but as people who are not very deep: not bad, just busy; not immoral, just distracted; not lacking in soul, just preoccupied; not disdaining depth, just never doing the things to get us there.
Information technology is a powerful narcotic, for good and for bad. It has the power to shield us from pain, to soothe us in healthy ways. That can be good. Sometimes a narcotic is helpful. But it can also be overly intoxicating and too absorbing. It can swallow us whole. There are few better things we can do to find solitude and rest within today’s hectic world, where all the news in the world is available at our fingertips, than to practice contemplative prayer, a regular and deep centering of ourselves in silence, a quiet sitting in one-to-one intimacy with God.
I hope you find some rest this month in whatever form works best for you.