Sarah Katreen Hoggatt

Articles

Rejoice in the Woods

Author(s): Sarah Katreen Hoggatt

Issue: On Loss (May 2023)

Two and a half years later, her voice still haunts me. From the other side of the fence, I hear her yell at her children as they play in the backyard. It’s a sunny day, and my wife and I are riding our bikes on a path that runs right beside this family’s home. We are enjoying a weekend vacation in Ashland, four hours south of our own home in Salem, Oregon. A blissful afternoon, we are all unaware that, just two days later, a fire will race up the path we’re riding on. It will level this entire neighborhood to the ground, including the mobile home we just passed, with the door that just clacked shut. Whole communities in several towns will be completely wiped out by just one fire – one of the many fires about to explode across our state. This particular fire, the Almeda fire, will consume 2,600 homes and three lives. Throughout the 2020 wildfire season in Oregon, at least twenty-one fires will each burn more than a thousand acres or cause significant structural damage or death. Over a million acres will burn, 40,000 people will be evacuated, and at least eleven people will be killed.

Issue: On Loss (May 2023)

Finding Life with the Dead

Author(s): Sarah Katreen Hoggatt

My sanctuary is my favorite cemetery. It’s easy to miss if you don’t know it’s there. Shielded by shrubbery, it runs down a slope to the river. Outside, my life is rushed and I lose the bigger picture. Inside, I walk with ghostly companions, listen to their wisdom, and find perspective.

Issue: On Place (May 2022)

Sierra Cascades Yearly Meeting Epistle 2021

Author(s): Mike Huber, Sarah Katreen Hoggatt

To Friends near and far:

Issue: On Cliques (September 2021)

Wild Diversity

Author(s): Sarah Katreen Hoggatt

As I sit in Quaker silence, my mind roams back over the wild places I know – icy cold snow falling all around me at a favorite mountain lake, trees I have held and spoken with, and vistas where my gaze enfolds itself into the hills and valleys far off and far below. Wilderness speaks itself deep in my soul. The untamed beauty of coastal shores and mountains run through my body and connect me to an energy bigger than myself. And though I don’t know what this energy is, I continue to step back towards it, wanting to find out.

Issue: On Relevance (March 2021)

Leaving the Ground

Author(s): Sarah Katreen Hoggatt

I never realized what was going on the moment I let go of the ground. It wasn’t until I was high in the air holding onto God that I saw God was all I had.

Issue: On Knowing (March 2015)