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Halloween is a night of pseudo ghouls, ghosts and goblins. I turn off the light on the porch to signal there’s no candy on offer, no costume-clad hostess at the door and no need to parade up my drive way. I wait for the night to become quiet again so I can enjoy the soft glow of moon in peace. In the wake of Halloween comes All Saint’s Day, and like the morning light streaming through my bedroom window comes…

[caption id="attachment_1519" align="aligncenter" width="700"] My strong and brave girl. Photo by Tina Francis.[/caption] My daughter asked to light the yellow candle. “Why the yellow one?” I asked, as I always do, giving her opportunity to voice her heart. “Yellow because my birth mom misses me, yellow because I want to thank her for letting me be born before she died.” I struck the match. I lit the wick. The candle burned for the next couple of hours, a sentinel guarding…

I’ve come to think that the implements for peace are in the granaries, not the armories. Maybe we need to look in garden sheds, not gun safes, when attempting to address our hostile urges. I survey the tool shed and find shovels to turn the soil of our too often thin, dry hearts. I see the spades, still caked with mud. Those spades could help us reach the deeper, darker soil ready for some good seed. People hemmed into fearfully…

I open my eyes. The morning light snuffs out the last embers of sleep. Hear, O Israel. I close my eyes. Lashes and lids become a wet blanket. Hear, O Israel. Each day bookended with these words, the final desire of the soul before death uttered in these words: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your…

He was walking to school in the morning air, right before the sun warmed away the chill. Backpack slung over one shoulder, dangling as he shuffled in his high-tops. The entire sidewalk belonged to him – maybe everyone else got a ride with their mom or arrived early for a free breakfast. He didn’t look lonely or sad. He didn’t look worried. To the naked eye he didn’t look vulnerable. But as I drove by him in the school zone…

I began my life in the Catholic Church, and she is my mother in undeniable ways. But one day my parents rushed me out in their own kind of exodus and we crossed into the land of  the Spirit-filled, non-denominational church. I lived in this land for all my adolescent years and most of my adult ones, too. In the past set of years I've reconnected with my mother church. I've also recalibrated my charismatic practice. My own experience, good…

Often in community development work we focus on the big things – the massive ideas that will transform the local economy, the construction of classrooms or strategies for improving local human rights. The challenges are not small, so our work efforts expand to meet the needs – we make our best, biggest attempt, anyways. Today I was thinking of the small things. We started a school last year. It took the better part of the year to secure the land,…

I got heartbreaking news recently. I’d seen it coming for weeks, but the audible words still knocked the wind out of me. Disappointment came first, the sensation of stillbirth. My dream that I labored on for well over nine months was a casualty. I carried an almost immediate emptiness due to this incomplete creation, this conversation I’d not contribute to anytime soon. It’s sad to hold a dead dream in your hands. But I was unprepared for what came next…

[caption id="attachment_1485" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Great August read...[/caption] August was always meant to be a month of transition, starting with 30+ hours in transit from Burundi to Arizona. Once landed, there would be the move from summer into the school year routine and from hours spent reading to writing deadlines demanding personal discipline once again. But August surprised me with more angst than anticipated, bringing me to the unexpected threshold of lament and liminal space. Lament for the loss of children…

I find it interesting how text and context rub up against each other on common days. For instance, I went to mid-week Eucharist to retreat into the silence of sacred space, to look another person in the eyes and say “Peace be with you” and hear “…and also with you” in response. I entered thirsty, my cup empty but extended in expectation. ***** “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill and cumin and have neglected…