Did you make any new year’s resolutions for 2023? If so, how is it going? I pray you are finding ways to deepen your faith and make life-giving changes. I also pray you are experiencing God’s grace and being gentle with yourself. I was going to tell you that I don’t make new year’s resolutions,…
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. . . . I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a…
The last time I saw my 19-year-old son*, he grumbled at me in the middle of the public library: “Just stop yelling at me all the time. I’m sick of it. I’m finally living my life how I want and you can’t control me!” For the record, I wasn’t yelling at him. I had told…
We’re all thinking a lot about our breath these days. About whether we’re breathing in COVID-19 virus particles—or, God forbid, unknowingly breathing them out. About where we breathe and how we breathe and whether we should cover our breath with a mask. We’re thinking about who is breathing in the space around us and about…
Imagine: A black man and his son grab guns, hop in their car, and chase down a white jogger. The young black man gets out of the car, confronts the unarmed jogger and, after a brief altercation, shoots him. Imagine: Hundreds of black people—most openly carrying firearms—swarm a state capital, yelling in the faces of…
In February of 2013, when my dad went into the hospital, I was overwhelmed by the intense, unbearable hope that my dad be made well. At first, this was hope for a diagnosis. I thought that if we could just name his disease, they could make Dad better. I was wrong. When I got what…
As a white Christian, I felt privileged to be part of a small inter-faith gathering recently where several women shared a bit of their own stories. One said that her sister went back to Iran to care for their parents. That had been the plan for a long time, and she followed through. But nobody…
My stomach feels sick because I’ve been crying. Curled up in a ball under my covers sobbing. I stayed up too late and woke up too early. And I know I’ll crash and burn in a few hours, but there’s no way I can sleep right now. I could give you the litany of my…
Women who attend meetings with men are often frustrated by the sexist dynamics in the room. Some men tend to interrupt, repeat women’s ideas as if they were their own, explain things they don’t really understand, and just generally not listen well. Women often want to advocate for themselves, but it can be hard to…
Just before 7 p.m on July 7, as protesters gathered in Belo Garden Park, in Dallas, Texas, I settled onto a hard wooden seat in the choir stall of St. John’s Abbey Church in Collegeville, Minnesota. As they chanted “enough is enough,” we chanted Psalm 59: “You have been a refuge in the day of…
Spacious Faith 