Forty-two hundred miles of driving for three weeks took my family and me from Kansas to the Adirondack mountains. It was a crazy amount of driving for any summer vacation, but all that beauty and time away did two things: they enlarged my creative focus while also narrowing it.

At various times over the past few years, I’ve been invited to pen a Beloved Charter. This is a letter from God to me, choosing and naming me as His own. It’s a simple way to practice compassion toward myself and others.