Giving Ourselves Permission to Change
March marks the two-year anniversary of this global pandemic. March 23, specifically, marks the anniversary of when life in my county came screeching to a halt with a shelter-in-place order…
Not all who wander are lost
March marks the two-year anniversary of this global pandemic. March 23, specifically, marks the anniversary of when life in my county came screeching to a halt with a shelter-in-place order…
As I was wrapping up my thoughts on this string of posts I realized there are two other ideas I wanted to share with you. They are not holidays, as…
We end our season of midwinter holidays with Harry Potter Day, or perhaps more accurately, Harry Potter Weekend. It is another movie marathon, although we don’t quite watch them all.…
When I first enlisted their help with holiday making, the first answer I heard from our boys was: “We want a gambling day!” My goodness, I thought. This was not…
I am a mom to three wonderful boys. This means, among other things, that our home has a lot of bathroom humor. There was a time when I tried to…
You have to be careful with your pronunciation on this one. I was describing it to my colleagues in a virtual meeting the other week, and people were like, “What…
When I first heard the plot of The Hunger Games, I thought I would never read it. It sounded much too dark for me. Not the first or last time…
I did not grow up celebrating Martin Luther King Day. If memory serves me right, I experienced him as a man largely ignored, or smeared. So I had a good…
I’m indebted to my Christian gay friends over at Spiritual Friendship for the discovery of St. Aelred’s day. January 12, or St. Aelred’s day, remembers the life of Aelred of…
“Mommy, remember when we did holidays every Saturday? When are we going to do that again?” “Just after Christmas, sweetie. Just after Christmas.” I was so tickled that he remembered…
Well, I got my Covid booster last Friday, and that wiped out my weekend and writing plans. Not bad, just fatigue. If you haven’t gotten your shot yet, please do.…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 12 Two of my closest friends are my sisters, which is fortunate because our family moved a total of nine times before I…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 11 Forgiveness is a non-negotiable. Essential. Dare I say it… required. That doesn’t make it any less of a bitter pill to swallow.…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 10 If I were to recommend one book on forgiveness, it would hands down be The Book of Forgiving, by Desmond and Mpho…
Or… a little poem about what forgiveness isn’t…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 8 A little while back I said I was making a note to circle back to the question of whether we can pursue…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 7 I was going to title my last post: Dealing With Our Enemies Safely. Upon further reflection, I scrapped it because I realized…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 6 So Father God wants to protect us from the incredible danger of hate and revenge. And also, when you forgive bad actors…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 5 So what exactly is forgiveness? I had signed up for it. Sitting there on that sofa, it was kind of like I…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 4 So back to my sofa and my unforgiving self. What are we to make of Jesus’ words, “So also my Heavenly Father…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 3 I’ve been reflecting more on my last post: the slow pace of relaxing my death grip on unforgiveness. If some of you…
Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 2 Maybe you’ve had this experience before: you’re consuming familiar content (a book, movie, soundtrack), and it suddenly hits you in a completely…
Or… In Which I Start Writing About Forgiveness Forgiveness is simultaneously one of the most breathtaking and also gut-wrenching concepts I have found in the Bible. I have discovered myself…
I love reading history. Still Time to Care is a groundbreaking look at the history of the white Evangelical movement’s response to gay people, and an invitation to shift from…
I’ve hit mental walls multiple times during this pandemic. Maybe you have too. The pandemic has required numerous and ever changing adaptations from us, which is exhausting. There has been…
As I participate in current in person and on-line conversations, I hear confusion about the concept of racial bias. Many seem to think that if my conscious belief is that…
I sat in a near empty classroom in our church basement with a handful of friends over a decade ago. Most people were elsewhere, still getting their Sunday morning coffee.…
I’ve wanted to learn sign language for a while now, and recently began a course through Stack Social. Before teaching signs, the instructor provided a brief history of American Sign…
Attachment has been a subject of growing interest in the mental health field for some time. It is the relational bond that starts in infancy between a child and caregiver.…
Some of the ideas I come up with are, let’s say… peculiar. Like the time I was clinically depressed and decided it would be a great time to read the…
Memory is a funny thing. Like photos that yellow or fade with age, memory is not some fixed immutable thing. This is true of our individual memories as well as…
Have you ever wondered what this sign stands for? I have. I assumed it helped lost children reconnect with their caregivers, but have discovered it is so much more. Recently…
My nephews are from Kenya. They were the first to teach me about the Maasai warriors. For years I knew them for their prolific jumping abilities, a skill that naturally…
This week I wrote at Fathom Magazine about family dynamics and my queer siblings: https://www.fathommag.com/stories/it-s-time-to-discuss-our-dysfunctional-family-dynamic
You will probably always be able to find me on the roster of my local church nursery. And it is not because of guilt, servanthood, humility, or the inability to…
One of the things that not everybody knows about me is that my parents were missionaries. This means that I was raised by people who many other people looked up…
One of the dynamics I find challenging to navigate as a big human caring for smaller humans is bullying. I’m grateful that we have more resources to address bullying than…
Insomnia is a beast. I am fortunate that its visits are infrequent, but visit it does. Sometimes it’s predictable, with a readily apparent reason. Other times are random: I didn’t…
I remember playing the Ungame at a friend’s house as a child and loving it. When my friend Jill told me that she keeps a pack of pocket edition UnGame…
“If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose…