by Laura Parker Roerden We protect what we love, an explorer once told us. But of what love did he mean? The love for a flower or that of a son? The love for a rock held safe in our palm, or that for a steeple? The love of a…

by Laura Parker Roerden

by Laura Parker Roerden Find something beautiful and let it inform your soul. Let it wash over you like a baptism. Let it ask more of you than you currently give. What is it that moves you to rise? Make an altar of it; catch it in the clasped palms of your heart…

Oh, holy water.

by Laura Parker Roerden Someone once told me I’m a flower, a river, and a band of thunder showers coming through a valley. I never meant to be so transitory, so reckless, or delicate. I imagine none of us do. We push our way up through the dirt, enjoy our…

Questions on an Anniversary Like an arrow piercing our hearts, the planes that took down those towers headed straight from some bow. Who knows why or exactly how the arrow was built? Where were the feathers found that made up the fletching? Were they created for lift? or simply an opportunistic gathering of remains…

by Laura Parker Roerden

by Laura Parker Roerden One of the best things about spending time doing science and service with teenagers around the world through Ocean Matters is the people you meet along the way, especially around meals or music. I never underestimate the magic of bringing people together in these ways, but…

by Laura Parker Roerden — You are probably asking: How are single-use plastic and children’s resiliency related? Is there some new study that shows plastic effects children’s brains and their resiliency? No, there is not. But there are plenty of studies that show that children’s resiliency, or what we might have called “grit” in another…