While we all follow recommendations to prevent the spread of COVID-19, many of us will miss meeting together for worship. Yet there are other ways to feel close to God. As a spiritual director and pastor, I am posting a spiritual practice each week on this blog, to help everyone learn new ways to experience God’s presence. A good one to start with is called … Continue reading Spiritual Practice: The Jesus Prayer
STOP. Most of the time that only means “pause.” Just long enough to look for traffic, to take a photo, to take a pill. But sometimes we know enough to quit what we are doing and pay attention to what matters: a child who needs a bedtime story, a friend who needs a listening ear, a neighbor who needs a helping hand. We know enough … Continue reading Finding and Being Sabbath
He never said, “Be safe.” He saw what they did with the life-giving Law, its walls now closing in on souls meant to roam free. Perhaps his tears over the city were not for all her wanderings, but for her fear, her lack of wonder, her contentment with the small, tame world of scrupulous obedience. He shook her at her core, tumbled the Temple, untamed … Continue reading Into the Wild
Nobody knows how or when the O Antiphons were written, but they are first mentioned in the sixth century. They are used on the days preceding Christmas Eve, December 17-23. I offer them to you now, at a time when you may be more open to them. After the rush and intensity of Advent and the Nativity, after the blessedness (and bloatedness) of celebrations, I … Continue reading Response to the O Antiphons
It is a curious exercise to consider the humanity of Jesus– dependent social hobbled by the burdens of everyday life suffering from compassion fatigue. Little wonder that he craved camaraderie in the school of hardship. Lessons in the mathematics of poverty and despair the rhetoric of injustice the geography of resilience. Stories that stayed with him trained him to endure the pain and keep a … Continue reading Friends
The wine spills into my body through lie-stained lips enters my bloodstream mingles with the givenness of my blood obediently nourishes cell and soul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Meanwhile I carry on like an ignorant executioner who occasionally wonders how he came to do this work. Continue reading Eucharist II
I am sailing along the asphalt stream, over the rolling hills, through the softness of green that is Iowa in summer. I want to run my hands across the tassel fur, over the nappy trees, wade in the bean rows to penetrate their texture, sink into the wonder. I pass by, but I am cleansed. Continue reading Summer 2019
You can stand in the river. Feel it caress and flow away from you. Mourn its indifference, its constant leave-taking. You can ride the river. Rest in your buoyancy. Enter the flow caressing and baptizing whatever is encountered. Trust the wisdom of its deep energy as it carries you on its course. Continue reading Flow
“Possum and Stump.” Sounds like a name for a bluegrass band. On my walk this morning I walked past a fence that used to be obscured by foliage. A couple of years ago the city decided to cut it all down. In a few cases they were too late. Some of the bushes had grown through the fence, and they couldn’t be removed without taking … Continue reading Possum and Stump
I share the sadness of thousands who were shocked this month at the death of Rachel Held Evans. The experiences she wrote about in the church and beyond the faith of her upbringing resonated deeply with me. I attended all but one of the “Why Christian?” conferences she led with Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber. I sang traditional hymns alongside a thousand others at those gatherings, with … Continue reading Church, Pie, and Rachel Held Evans
saint sinner seeker 