My father in law, Jacob Ehman, was a German farm boy in North Dakota. He met my mother-in-law, Helen, a German farm girl, on a Ferris wheel ride in Ashley, North Dakota. Helen and Jake bought a small mobile home and hauled it to New York, parking it near the …

I met Tim when I was visiting Yale Divinity School as a prospective student. We became fast friends when I began my first year and he began his last. He was Southern Baptist from Back Swamp, North Carolina. After dinner he sat at the piano in the common room sang …

The city came and chopped down the diseased Ash tree between the sidewalk and the street in front of our house. And just recently, a red flag appeared in the snow, and a note saying they would soon be replacing the tree with a new planting. I laugh every time …

Mother Teresa, Janis Joplin and Princess Diana are three women I have admired from a distance but for very different reasons. Mother Teresa’s autographed photograph hung on my office wall for many years because of her devotion to loving the poor and lifting them up. One of my fondest family …

Their love was forbidden. Their marriage was a secret. They lived most of their days apart and in solitude. But nothing could thwart their devotion to each other. It was medieval France and priests were not allowed to marry. His name was Peter of Abelard and her name was Heloise. …

Sometimes I see life in different categories: my home life; my work life, my spiritual life, my physical health, my fitness, my financial well-being, my social life. Juggling all of these at once, I often to fail to achieve success in them simultaneously. There don’t seem to be enough hours …

Two- year-old George bounded down the center aisle with his big brothers and plopped down on the red carpeted steps in front of the communion table. Two seconds into the children’s sermon George stood, climbed up and cozied himself right into Rev Joe Walker’s lap. Though we were only eight minutes into the 9:01 worship service, with offering, communion and sermon still to go, for me the worship was already complete.

I had heard about “pop up” restaurants and “pop up” retail shops but until last Sunday I had never heard a “Pick up” choir. One of our elders invited Dr. Paul Tucker to designate a Sunday where anyone who wanted to could sing in the choir on one Sunday. All you had to do was show up at 10:00 a.m. that day to rehearse the anthem for the 11:00 a.m. service.

Some families celebrate Christmas with the precision of a Bach cantata and some with the creative improvisation of a jazz medley. Both can be beautiful. But while we are in the middle of it, sorting out which traditions are essential and which are flexible can be tricky. The goal of …

We had finished our bedtime stories and I was ready to tuck them in to bed. “I’m not saying it, I always say it.” My granddaughters (ages 5 and 8) began bickering about who would say the night night prayers. It was a standoff and my husband had to intervene to get us past the impasse.

“The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.” Revelation 22:2b This quote hangs in large wooden letters on the wall of the Bash Chapel at Tall Oaks, our denomination’s conference center near Bonner Springs, KS. A few weeks ago, our staff gathered in the Bash chapel …

I am about 100 yards away from the beach. But I can’t quite get there. A few more things to read, memos to send, projects to complete. I look forward to the feel of the sand in my toes and the sound of the ocean rhythm. But I resist letting go of my important tasks a little longer.