Meredith Doster is an educator and writer situated at a crossroad where rural Americana and the Iron Curtain meet. With birthright gifts of here, there, anywhere, and nowhere, Meredith looks for people and places everywhere. At her grandmother’s kitchen table, Meredith listens for stories inherited and those we love to tell. Planting with her grandfather, Meredith remembers what it takes to grow. Some journeys bear out the hard truths gleaned in the trading of one kind of learning for another. Ever mindful of foregone conclusions, Meredith proposes a new trinity—yours, mine, ours. And also always theirs. This, too, is her prayer: That we notice one another in the giving and the taking; and that our losses count both more and less than the beauty found in unexpected community and care. 

Meredith’s questions probe at slippery distinctions between knowing and believing. Less invested in sure answers than the discipline of digging deep, she lives by practices of presence steeped in relationship, reflection, reckoning, and rest. A scholar of religion, Meredith searches for meaning made among curious thinkers and radical practitioners. Hers is a gospel that preaches the every day over the eternal. Writing about competing truth claims and centers that cannot hold, Meredith champions a theology of sufficiency that promises just enough—for ourselves and for one another.

Born into a family of singers and storytellers, Meredith journeys with poets, makers, artists, and elders. Where worlds collide or collapse into something bold and beautiful, Meredith finds community. With a masters degree in Appalachian Studies and the PhD in Religious Studies from Emory University, Meredith is curious about relationships between people, places, and things. Hers is a practice gifted and always gifting. Regardless of setting or context, Meredith works with and walks toward the light. Meredith is currently at work on a collection of essays, Jar by Jar: A Practice of Relations.