Choosing Silence and Being Silenced

by | Jul 22, 2020 | Uncategorized

Often, I crave silence. I long to retreat from the noise of news, the sirens of social media, the din of demands, and the clamor of emails and text messages. I know that, if I retreated for a long time, I’d experience FOMO, the fear of missing out, but that’s not a...

Loving the Neighbor and the Neighborhood

by | Jul 12, 2020 | Uncategorized

I heard Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) for the first time when I was six years old,  during summer Vacation Bible School at First Baptist Church of Conley, GA. My teacher illustrated the story with flannel-graph figures of the priest, the...

A Time for Lament

by | Jul 3, 2020 | Uncategorized

Nearly 129,000 Americans have died of COVD-19, and the number of cases is growing rapidly. Along with the pandemic of illness, there’s an epidemic of loneliness. Many people are sustaining severe economic losses. There’s intensified and justified anger about...

Jesus, the Virus, and Not Wasting an Apocalypse

by | Apr 26, 2020 | Uncategorized

(Purl’s Yarn, Asheville) I’ve written and deleted a half-dozen posts about the Covid-19 Pandemic, I’ve deleted them because you don’t need my opinions about medicine and you don’t want my political commentary. What I mostly wrote was a series of rants—cathartic,...

Anger, Frustration, and Grace

by | Mar 18, 2020 | Uncategorized

This year’s assignment for inner work during Lent came as an unsought gift and demand. On Ash Wednesday, between a midmorning meeting and an early afternoon medical appointment, I went to the noon service at All Souls Episcopal Cathedral. I looked forward to being...