Heather Isaacs

My initials spell "Hi."

Hi.

Spirituality

  • Birthday Wish: 12 June

    Today, I turn 48 years old. I am grateful to celebrate another year of life and feel incredibly blessed and loved for so many reasons. But I admit today feels more somber in light of world events. Years ago, I learned I shared a birthday with Anne Frank who was born on June 12, 1929. Read more

  • Lifeguard On Duty

    Yesterday, between shifts at the hospital, I went swimming at the nearby fitness center on campus. Swimming has become a vital practice for me in the New Year as a form of both mental and physical self-care. The feeling of moving my body in the water helps me release the near constant noise of stress Read more

  • Questions in Winter

    Where do you find comfort these days? I am borrowing mine from the birds. From my bathroom window, I can see the doves and robins perched together in a naked sumac tree in the middle of winter. How do they find shade or shelter together when there is nothing to protect them? And why are Read more

  • Puppets are Real.

    Between client sessions yesterday afternoon, I found a bit of time to play with my newest puppet. This little one is a spirit baby who is very hesitant to incarnate but still likes to listen to audiobooks with me sometimes. Here we are listening to Andy Serkis’ narrating the chapter “Shelob’s Lair” from The Two Read more

  • The Day After

    In September of 2001, I started my graduate studies at a liberal Presbyterian seminary in Northern California. I was a 24 year-old Seventh-Day Adventist woman looking for a place to pursue a theological education beyond the conservative boundaries of my home denomination which did not recognize women’s ordination. But surprisingly, I soon found myself becoming Read more

  • The Hairbrush

    I am honored to see an essay of mine published in the most recent issue of The Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. The essay describes an encounter I once had with a hospice patient who was struggling with terminal agitation. When the whole world feels like it is in a state of terminal agitation, Read more

  • Brother Rufino’s Best Worst Day

    When my friend Nina G and I arrived in Assisi, Italy for our writing residency at Arte Studio Ginestrelle this past January, we did so with a particular writing project in mind. Instead, other stories found us and took us on different creative paths as we explored the history and spiritual traditions in and around Read more

  • The Orant

    TW: grief, death, pediatric trauma. I once arrived to a pediatric ED where, again, the worst had happened. Resuscitation efforts on the baby had just ended. The social worker met me at the threshold and said they needed to excuse themselves; they could not stay in the room because of the nature of the trauma Read more

  • The Moth

    On the night before we were going to load the UHaul last week, I was home alone and a moth appeared. Nine years in this place and I do not remember a moth ever showing up here before. I love moths—these “night butterflies”—I have one included on the giant, solitary tattoo on my hip as Read more

  • Good-bye, Summer. Thank you for the Old Trees and Ostrich Feet.

    I am saying good-bye to a summer that I was barely present for. This summer was almost entirely lost to me in a dizzying spin of overnight hospital shifts and hours-long commutes across half the state as I patch together a new life for myself since I left full-time hospice chaplaincy work a year ago. Read more