Blog

It was a Sunday afternoon and we were shopping for some sundries at a big box store. My son and I stood in line with our hummus, asparagus, milk and raspberries. The aisles already decked for Christmas, shopping carts overflowing with groceries and soon-to-be-gifts, my boy said he wished we could just skip to Christmas and open presents. I winced. Then I realized I had done him a disservice. “Our culture has misled you,” I said, as he leaned on…

It wasn’t too hard to rouse the excitement in my parents regarding the impending adoption of our son - they were adoptive parents themselves, after all.  Their transition into adoptive grandparents came easy. While the international adoption process felt foreign to them, the broader brush strokes of the adopted life were indigenous to their heart. The arrival of the next adopted generation excited us all - but I’m sure for them there was the added satisfaction that they must have…

I am a holy contrarian. I don’t deck the halls, play merry, shine bright or sparkle. I dim the lights and lean into the hush. It is Advent, after all. I crack open my spirit and let the dissonance cry out, I rend my soul and allow the discord to seep in slowly, engorging every chamber of my seed-sized heart. I drop all pretenses shielding me and look the weary world straight in her tear-stained eyes. The suffering doesn’t stare…

Adoption is about the creation of a family, the joining of a child to parents for a lifetime of love and belonging. Most conversation about adoption stems from this understanding. It’s common to hear stories about the complicated adoption process, all the waiting for a placement, the jubilation of homecoming, and the adjustments to the new life together. We listen to scenes from the life of the nuclear family and easily assume adoption only affects them. Limiting adoption to a…

It is Adoption Awareness Month. In that spirit I share some snapshots from my early years, growing in the company of the adopted. *** “Did your parents find you in a dumpster?” I just about spit my juice across the table in disbelief mingled with hilarity. Who could think such a thing? A baby in a dumpster, who does that sort of thing? But there at the elementary school lunch table I got my first question from a bona fide…

This morning I crack my eyes open and see the saints. They are marching past, a pageant of virtue from generations gone by. Madeline L’Engle and Henry Nouwen, Wangari Maathai and Richard Twiss, more recent saints like Marcus Borg and Phyliss Tickle parade past as reminders of our inheritance of faith. The lives of the saints give a tangible vision to what an embodied faith can look like. Their tenure tells of creativity and contemplation, activism and advocacy, even scholarship…

“There is power in the name of Jesus,” we sang full force. “There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain,” we repeated with arms out-stretched. “There’s an army rising up,” the refrain assured those gathered in a synagogue-turned-church. I stopped singing. That very day a youth militia was rising up across Burundi, armed and ready to suppress opposition with guns, grenades and machetes. Every text and tweet confirmed what war looked like. The metaphor got caught…

I signed and sent it – then tried to survive the rest of the day that included paying property taxes, grocery stops and two carpool line-ups in rapid succession. *** But the next morning before I reached for a pen, I dropped the kids at school and rushed to the cathedral. I ran across the sun-worn parking lot, entering slightly late but hungry. I slipped through the double-doors and dipped my fingers in the basin of cool water. A blessing…

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land. What does it mean to be called blessed? To be meek? What did Jesus mean when he used these words on a sun-drenched hillside surrounded by the curious ones? My son and I have been exploring these questions for a couple of weeks and learning together what it is (and what it isn't) to be meek. Today I share our discoveries over at SheLoves Magazine...

Today my sisters at SheLoves Magazine are sharing my 500 words on Proverbs in honor of release week for The Jesus-Centered Study Bible. How do Proverbs + Women + Jesus connect? Click over to SheLoves magazine to find out! And check out The Jesus-Centered Study Bible now available on amazon.com and other book sellers nationwide. So many good friends have contributed to this project, including Kathy Escobar, Carl Medearis, Mark Braverman, Brian Zahnd and Jonathan Salgado.