A Deeper Story

This week I'm sharing a simple story from motherhood under my roof. My son and I often tumble into interesting conversations. This time the talk centered on planets, stars and outer space type of things. Sometimes we get to help our kids see connections, sometimes we give them permission to explore and not be afraid. From time to time we even push a bit... do not be afraid of your curiosity, of connections, of science. This was one of those…

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…

[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…

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 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…

Words pierce like a weapon. The comments crisscross via phone slashing her. In the middle of a seminary campus walks a woman with quick stride and a crushed heart. When we talk she’s stunned (or embarrassed) the words still ring in her ears days later. “You are allowed to have days like this one.” I say. I mean it; you are allowed to have hard days when your insides ache. I thought of the need to lament disconnection whenever it…

The Hebrews danced to the emphatic beating of the drums across the Red Sea, leaving behind the brickyards forever. They sang “The horse and rider YHWH has thrown into the sea!” as they moved beyond the reach of their taskmasters. Moses led the liberation parade as Miriam played her tambourine along the edge accompanied by a band of women. What a sight for sore, slave-weary eyes. I played a tambourine when I was young. It was small, made of chestnut…

He sits with women. When trouble comes, the mamas and widows gather at the edges of peril and my husband finds them. He joins them. Last week flood waters rushed in overnight killing some of the most vulnerable children and displacing over fifteen thousand families from their homes. Almost as fast the Red Cross erected at makeshift camp on a nearby soccer field. At the invitation of the director, my husband drove out on the first day to survey the…

  My first encounter with the Spirit, as far as I know, happened at St. Nicholas Church. Spiritual songs surrounded me, people spoke in tongues quietly, and one night I joined the spirited cacophony, too. We gathered across the parking lot in the fellowship hall, trading candles for florescent overhead lighting and a pew-free space to circle up chairs. The Holy Spirit lit our hearts. We kept the fire to ourselves. When we crossed back to the altar we used…

How appropriate that my South African sister broke the news to me – Mandela died. I picked my daughter up from school and before we were out of the carpool lane I cried again, telling her Madiba died. “The South African president?” she asked. We read his story many times last year over dinner, so she knew it well enough to share my tears. We drove to the store and picked out bunches of white lilies, a pillar candle and…