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…
A Few Final Helps for Getting Through the Bleak Midwinter or Other Tough Patches
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…
I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good
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.…
Happy Chance Day!
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…
Happy Crap Day!
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…
Happy Meh Day!
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…
Happy Hunger Games
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…
Happy Martin Luther King Day!
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…
Saint Aelred’s Day
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…
Getting Through the Bleak Midwinter
“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…
Jesus as Buffer
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…
God as Avenger
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.…
Does Forgiveness Mean Staying in Relationship?
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…
How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 9
Or… a little poem about what forgiveness isn’t…
Forgiveness in the Face of Danger: A Word About Domestic Violence
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…
Creating Safety in an Unsafe World
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…
Distinguishing Love from Intimacy
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…
Defining Forgiveness
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…
God’s Protective Parent Heart in Forgiveness
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…
Learning Forgiveness at Different Speeds
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…
My Encounter with the Tale of the Two Debtors
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…
How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 1
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…
Still Time To Care, A Review
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…
Pandemic Losses and Finds
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…
Evaluating our Automatic Thoughts
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…
You Can’t Refrigerate Righteousness
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.…
Language Control
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…
God as our Secure Base
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.…
Scripture Reading While Depressed
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…
Developing a Healthier Posture Toward the Past
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…
“I Need a Safe Place”
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…
A Warrior Greeting
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…
Writing Elsewhere
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
On the Prestige of Nursery Ministry
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…
Everybody Farts
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…
Is It Bullying or Just Conflict?
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…
Coloring with Jesus
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…
Harry Potter Ungame Questions
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…
Sins Not Unto Death
“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…
Unintended Consequences
It is impossible to fully predict all the possible consequences of any particular action we take. This world is far too complicated and our lives too interconnected. While we usually…