Felicity (BA, MFA) is a poet, essayist, and writing instructor.

Most recently, her poem “At the Nadia Bolz-Weber Lecture” was published in the January 2016 issue of The Tishman Review. Two poems, “Fika on Marstrand Island, Sweden” and “StarDate: August 27, Moon and Aldebaran” are forthcoming from The Sunlight Press.

Felicity lives in Omaha, Nebraska.

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I’ve always loved my name. It means happiness. You can find it in British novels and on American television. For me, it came from my dad who told it to my mom on their first date, which happened to be at Pizza Hut.

“If I have a daughter someday, I’m going to name her Felicity.”

He had recently seen a Western movie. He might have been wearing the white bell bottom jeans I’ve seen in old photos, I’m not sure. In the film, a beautiful woman stepped off the stagecoach and someone in the dusty town asked, “Who is that?” and someone else replied, “That’s Felicity.” I think my mom swooned and I know she decided right then that she was going to marry him. I’ve heard the story a million times. When I was born, she added the middle name Jo (after the Little Women heroine), and I’ve been lucky to live my forty-plus years in the beautiful birthright of the name they gave me together.

We come from faith people – from as far back as my grandma’s rancher father who gave up drinking at a Billy Sunday crusade and immediately started hauling his seven children to church every week over the rocky hills of northern California. From a great-grandfather on my mom’s side they called Brother because he drove hours and hours in a tired-out car to preach the Bible and sing hymns in clapboard church buildings throughout rural Illinois and Missouri. Countless stories in between have paved a clear path of believing for me. I’ve had to grow into it, of course, make it my own – I certainly don’t have much figured out – but most often it has been very well with my soul.

I even married the son of a preacher man. That’s going well so far – 17 years in!

Some days this title of faith person provides perfect peace and other days it feels like a strange burden. It has both comforted and scared me. Still, it feels as intricate to my person as breathing or singing Hamilton lyrics, despite the times other faith people have disappointed, hurt, or angered me. I’m learning to embrace the tension of faith in God and the reality of a beautiful, flawed world.

We live in Omaha, Nebraska. You should visit.