When summer rolls around my happy place is the screened-in porch. Surrounded by the lush green magnolia tree, orange zinnias, white hydrangeas I find solace. Reading or praying at dawn or unwinding at sunset I feel the warmth of the summer rising the whisper of rain. Watching the yellow and red finches Read More...
There is nothing more on this earth to be prized than true friendship” -Thomas Aquinas I lost a friend this week. Jan was 27 years older than me and often played the role of second mother, advising me and encouraging me to listen to my heart. She was the first female board Read More...
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? -Psalm 8: 2-3When I was in Kindergarten, we drove from our home in Ft. Worth to Read More...
When the Apostle Paul concludes his letter to the church in Rome he sends personal greetings to 26 named individuals. “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon…welcome her as a saint…Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus and who risked their necks for my life…Greet Urbanus, Read More...
Last Friday, when the Supreme Court officially released its ruling on the reversal of Roe V. Wade, I was grateful that I had already written and released the Friday e-news because it would give me a week to think through my spiritual reflections. Though seven days later, my heart remains heavy and Read More...
Someone came over and stood at the foot of his bed and rubbed his feet. Writer and teacher Parker Palmer tells in one of his books about the time when he fell into such a deep depression that he could no longer get out of bed in the morning. Folks from his Read More...
May and June are filled with activities where families seem to be woven and re-woven together: graduations, weddings, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, end-of-the-year recitals, and in our family we celebrate five birthdays and three wedding anniversaries. But we know that families are also fragile and everything does not always fall into Read More...
When Leonardo DaVinci was turning 30, he needed a job so he wrote a letter to the ruler of Milan. In the first 10 paragraphs he touted his own success and skill as an engineer who could build bridges, cannons and buildings. And then in the eleventh paragraph, he mentioned that he Read More...
A lady brought me a silver teapot. Her friend, a member of our church, died decades ago but wanted the church to have this silver teapot for our future tea parties. Should I keep it or give it away? A member of the choir asks, “Should the choir sing weekly or once Read More...
“What is essential? And what is non-essential?” Krista Tippett raised these two questions in her talk on “Remaking the World” last week. It reminded me of the things I let go of during the pandemic: frenetic activity, relationships that were not life giving, eating out, meetings that could have been emails, shopping, Read More...
My eyes were closed. I took a breath. A unison chorus of voices reverberated off of the walls and inside the caverns of my heart. “Our father…Our daily bread…Our debts.” The moment that startled me and gripped me was not the Hallelujah Chorus or the trumpet fanfare or the organ shaking the rafters, though Read More...
Good Friday turns our attention to the holy mystery of a crucified God. We ponder why God would send love to earth in human form only to let him die as a common criminal. The big theological questions loom on Good Friday as we remember the passion of Jesus and the pain Read More...
“You are drinking chocolate milk even though you gave up sweets for Lent. You are just forming another bad habit,” my 9 year old granddaughter accused her 11 year old sister. It was clearly a taunt. Isn’t it funny how kids can bicker, even over spiritual practices? I tried to intervene and Read More...
I don’t remember how I became acquainted with the work of Krista Tippet. For years I listened to her spiritually reflective interviews with various cutting edge thinkers in science, religion and literature. Her voice was a healing balm to me on long walks as I would plug in her podcast On Being. Read More...
“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” Forty days. Jesus, our Lord, spent forty days facing trials and temptations, worries and struggles. In a way, it makes no sense that God Read More...
