The Opposite of a Dumpster Fire

by | Jan 2, 2021 | Uncategorized

What’s the opposite of a dumpster fire? Of doom-scrolling? Of trolling? What would the best-year-ever be like? Long ago, I drove away from a town in which I’d experienced a lot of pain. As I crossed the city limits and, a few minutes later, the county line, I looked...

A Mid-Advent Lament

by | Dec 12, 2020 | Uncategorized

Rodin Museum, Paris There’s so much to lament these days. There are also reasons to be thankful, of course, and the practice of gratitude is both a sign of, and a way toward, wholeness. In ways we don’t often recognize, lament is such a practice, too. The Psalms,...

Help From Everywhere

by | Nov 1, 2020 | Uncategorized

Like almost everyone I know, I’m anxious and for many of the same reasons: the election, the pandemic, and the economy, among others. A lot of us are tired: of being remote from extended family, good friends, and colleagues; of Zoom gatherings; and of the inability to...

There’s still time . . . and hope

by | Oct 28, 2020 | Uncategorized

With a crowd of other children, I toddled through a school lunchroom, holding my mother’s hand, as we moved closer to the front of a line at one of several tables covered with sugar cubes in very small paper cups. When it was my turn, a nurse handed me a sugar cube...

What We Expect, What Happens, and What We Can Do

by | Oct 8, 2020 | Uncategorized

To say the least and the obvious, 2020 hasn’t been the kind of year I imagined it would be.  On New Year’s Eve 2019, as I looked toward the possibilities and challenges of the year ahead, I didn’t see what we’re now experiencing. Sure, like a lot of other people, I...

Leading for Church Health in this Election Season

by | Sep 22, 2020 | Uncategorized

This article appears in this week’s Center for Healthy Churches Digest To say the least and the obvious, we live in a time of confusion and upheaval. It’s well-known that St. Anthony the Great, one of the church’s Desert Fathers, said: “A time is coming when...

The Presence of God in Perilous Times

by | Sep 8, 2020 | Uncategorized

(From Pixbay) To admit the obvious but often unspoken truth: a lot of us are struggling these days. How could we not be? In my conversations with folks, I’m hearing, far more often than even a few weeks ago, expressions of weariness and distress: I feel overwhelmed ....

The Gift of Responsibility

by | Aug 24, 2020 | Uncategorized

As I recover, slowly and gratefully, from heart surgery and continue to receive regular treatment for cancer, I’m thinking a lot about responsibility. Responsibility is “the ability to respond.” To say “I’m responsible” is to say “I have the will and the capacity to...

I Trust

by | Aug 9, 2020 | Uncategorized

On a day in late June, before sunrise, I was in the rocking chair passed down to me from my grandfather, having read the morning lessons and a poem or two. I was troubled, for good reasons: the rising death-toll from COVID-19; the murder of George Floyd, and the...