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Exodus is my favorite story in the Hebrew Bible. It is a foundational narrative that never ceases to offer rich metaphors, deep challenges and new trajectories. There is a reason we hear the drumbeat throughout the Torah and the rest of Scripture: "Remember, remember, remember when you were once slaves in Egypt." I still cannot shake the imagery of the brickyard first introduced to me by Walter Brueggemann. He made the brickyard, the incessant quotas, the fears and power of…

I used to anticipate Christmas. I anticipated The Birth, the joy and the peace. The weeks of waiting, called Advent, intensified the arrival of the baby. The purple-clad days of Advent and its slow burning candles allowed Christmas to burst bright red on the scene, to sound like a crescendo across the landscape. Now I anticipate differently. I await the redemption of the broken down places and the fractured ways of the world. It’s a longing not quickly resolved by…

Often times personal lament and confession overlap. There are moments we see ourselves amid the ashes and we complain, confess, speak out our part in the wrongness of things. Reading the lament Diana offered, this one phrase haunted me relentlessly: “And sometimes, the betrayer is me.” I love my brown brothers and sisters. Yet as I scour my own upbringing, I see how my words and actions have betrayed otherwise. It is a systemic wrong, but also a personal one…

Everyone wants to deck the halls with blaring reds and shining silvers, eager to rush into celebration. We love the Christmas music, old and new, the blow-out sales and conjuring of merriment. We say the season is laced with magic and miracles amid the snow and woolen scarves. We don joy. But Advent is the season of purple hues and dark blues. It is the cool colors, the chill before the celebrations of good cheer. In this season of hush…

“What was her name?” my daughter asks. “Did anyone save a picture of her?” “Do you know where her house is so I can see where she lived?” Her questions come fast these days; always asked with great curiosity and sometimes intensity. A salvaged photograph would mean she could see what her birth mom looked like – do we share brown skin, did I get my long lashes from you, is there any resemblance between us? At night she burrows…

[caption id="attachment_1538" align="aligncenter" width="700"] PHOTO CREDIT: Tina Francis // taken in Burundi one summer afternoon[/caption] Reading through Proverbs lately I noticed, as if for the first time, the preponderance of women. They are everywhere among the words of wisdom. There is Lady Wisdom, the great personification, and the lesser Folly. We meet wives, mothers, an adulteress and the woman of valor among many other women offering instruction to all who would listen. I could imagine a reader nearly missing the…

The rebel in me stirred. Walking barefoot across the living room I felt the fist push through me. Oh yes, my inner rebel was roused. A younger version of me would have assumed this surge of rebellion synced with the sin of Eve, wanting more than is mine to have, desiring that which lives beyond my capacity to manage or comprehend. A rebel reaching for another piece of forbidden fruit for which I must be chided. But quick as I…

My friend, Amy Peterson, invited me to contribute to her series on our Second Simplicity. Amy is an amazing writer, skilled editor and smart + witty friend. It's an honor to share my own second naiveté with her... about my own understanding of the cross. I came of age in evangelical circles where the cross was the high ground, the holy pinnacle of faith. The cross was the symbol above all others, the metaphor not to be desecrated with any…

My sweet son is notorious for losing things – pens, socks, even his phone. Once something has gone missing, he moves right along without noticing most of the time. Losing and living skip along hand in hand for him. I’m the one reminding him to go to the lost and found at school to look for the left behind lunch box / water bottle / hoody. If it wasn’t for me hot on his little heels I doubt he’d go…

I sat in my study leafing through yellowed documents stiffened by time. I read the letter typed in courier font by Sister Bertrille telling my parents they’ve been approved for the placement of a child. I notice her clear, careful signature. In a subsequent letter she happily grants their request to adopt me saying, “This will be a truly wonderful event for you and your little one.” Again I study her tilted cursive, the seal on my holy writ. The…