Select Page

A Blessing for Holy Week

Take heart and hope from the promises of this Holy Week: when you feel good and glad, Jesus joins your parade of celebration.  When you gather at the table with people who love you, Jesus is there; he serves you the bread, and he offers you the cup.  When...

Freedom from Self-Consciousness

Several years ago, I realized that, for a long time, I had been fighting-back tears whenever I would see children run gleefully around a playground or hear them squeal with delight as they played, or notice their wonder over wildflowers, squirrels and birdsong. ...

Toward All Thnigs Made New

As I make my slow way through this frequently labored and often labyrinthine Lenten season, I am grateful that Resurrection lures us toward the future which it has already opened-up. Light and hope stream into our present circumstances;  they show us that love is...

The Privilege of Listening

One of life’s crucial lessons is that we are responsible for how we use our ability to pay attention.  We are stewards of our capacities to notice, to focus, and to consider people, the world around us, and God.   We choose what to do with our...

Knowing Ourselves, Knowing God

We learn some things sequentially, a step at a time: first the basics, then intermediate challenges and, only later, greater complexity.  Like math, for instance: learn to count, to add, and to subtract; then, to multiply and divide.  After this basic...

Songs of the Caged Bird

“I know why the caged bird sings,” wrote Paul Laurence Dunbar.  It is “a prayer the he sends from his heart’s deep core. . .a plea that upward to heaven he flings—I know why the caged bird sings.” Slaves in the cotton fields sang, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,...