biblical expectations (riffing on Ellen Davis)
http://vimeo.com/50374789 How do you read the Bible? An ominous question when posed to an Old Testament scholar like Ellen Davis. She charmed me right away – back and forth. How simple and elegant. She sums up so much of Biblical scholarship when she instructs us to read back and forth to allow one text to illumine another. I’m still smiling, she’s still smiling, when she pushes me to a new edge: …and don’t expect to agree with everything it says…
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{ ShePonders: Rise, Return & Repair }
We wake up, rise out of bed and then what? Once eyes open and focus, honing in on the day ahead, the world awaiting, what next steps do we take to move forward from sleep and comfort toward transformation? RISE (Nehemiah 1) Nehemiah’s story is a good place to start. He, too, began from a position of relative comfort as a cupbearer to the king. I know it sounds like a low-level servant’s job, but the cupbearer carried more than…
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the marshmallows of Thanksgiving
I reach for my collection of favorite recipes, already dreaming of fall and feasting. I envision the shopping, a grocery cart overflowing with pears, apples, bulbs of garlic, bunches of herbs. My daughter looks for one thing – marshmallows. I’ve hosted Thanksgiving Dinner for many years, enough to have some culinary traditions like roasted garlic mashed potatoes (full butter, full crème), a brined and roasted turkey and pear crisp for the finale. But for my daughter the dinner is all…
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my baptismal backstory
Last week I wrote about moments I've felt baptized here. This is the back story. [caption id="attachment_237" align="alignleft" width="196"] photo by Geograph[/caption] Baptism is a weak sacrament. Admitting it hurts. Saying it out loud for the first time stings - both my tongue and my theological sensibilities. Years in various churches, study groups and even seminary muzzled me. I’ve let people think I waded into a pool (or river) and been dunked. But I’ve come clean here. I’ve never been dunked.…
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5 things about me you probably didn’t know
So my friend Pam Hogeweide shared her 5 things and asked us to do the same... this is my gesture of friendship to her & you! 1. I returned home from college without my piercings. My mother pierced my ears - twice each ear. I always hated wearing earrings since I had sensitive ears and couldn't wear fun ones. So while away at school I took out the studs and gold hoops for good, letting my holes finally close. Mom was appalled.…
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{ Deeper Story: A Baptism That Counts }
When was I baptized? When did my new identity hit me like the shocking sting of cold water to the lungs after a deep plunge? When did I come up gasping for air noticing everything around me looked different – brighter, truer? When did my identification with Christ recalibrate my compass, change my direction in this world? It wasn’t when I was sprinkled as an infant in the secure arms of my mother. It wasn’t when I was dunked into…
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awake
                    Posted in conjunction with SheLovesMagazine.com's synchroblog AWAKE. I piled on the bus with all the others, different in my whiteness, age, visibility. The teens jostled to find seats around us, excited to be selected and to be on a bus going anywhere. These Batwa boys and girls chattered away in youthful pitch, punctuated by loud bursts of laughter and occasional outbursts into song. Today we were traveling to Bubanza together.…
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my mission, my children
Children weren’t in my preferred future. I remember growing up baby-sitting was the most painful way to earn money. I did it for a season until I gathered ample funds to purchase my first Bible, but then I quit. In college studying the affects of advertizing and programming on children – again I was convinced parenting with all those choices was not for me. I avoided children at church, refusing to volunteer in Sunday School. Sticky, smelling, loud and demanding…
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garden variety insecurity
I've been struggling with insecurity the last couple of days. Everything I write I want to trash. My ideas feel still-born. Trying to be brave I end up feeling foolish - and small. Remember when Adam and Eve owned the Garden? I mean owned it as in strutted around with confidence, without clothes, without insecurity? What must that have been like? To be naked and unashamed - unconcerned with external evaluation, unafraid of the environment, to walk about picking fruit…
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{ ShePonders: Jezebel }
While never accused of having a Jezebel spirit, I’ve been in the room when others were so branded. Circulating in charismatic churches for many years I learned no one wants to be called a Jezebel. When we described someone (always a woman in my experience) as having a Jezebel spirit we meant she was controlling, manipulative, bossy and aggressive. It seemed to be the perfect insult clouded in Christian-speak. I began to wonder who this woman was and why we…
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