SheLoves Magazine

I am at a loss. In the aftermath of the U.S. election I see the national terrain differently. I see people differently. The veneer is gone. I can’t unsee what’s been revealed. I made time to lament for seven days. Black was all I saw, all I felt, and so all I wore. The grief felt appropriate and yet premature. I retreated to the words of Isaiah, as I often do. (The book of Isaiah is called The Fifth Gospel…

The days following the American election plunged me into lament. Everything around me was in grayscale; everything in me was melancholy. Yet full-scale lament was premature because the worst hadn’t happened yet. What I witnessed on election night was the first fracture in the wall, not the total crumbling of the city that Daughter Zion mourned in Lamentations. So I tempered my own lament—somewhat. I allowed myself seven days to feel the sadness. Then I was determined to pay attention…

My inheritance is a mixed bag. I am one woman’s biological daughter and another woman’s adopted child. I am a descendant of the Mexican families who populated California and also the Irish who suffered a great potato famine once. My age reveals that I am more Latina than I thought given my penchant for icons and lighting vigil candles when I pray. I even have a statue of Mother Mary in my living room. I am also more Catholic than…

Today I am exploring confession as witnessed across Scripture from Genesis to the Gospels. This post is part of SheLoves Magazine's month of conversation around this theme.   "I must confess in unison with the congregation that I have sinned—by what I have done and what I have failed to do. This is the ancient tradition handed down to me like a family recipe, the catechism that gives me words to say what I would otherwise resist saying. I must…

I walk the hallway of the large mission-minded church and see the pictures of women, children and men from across Central America and East Africa. Interspersed among the colorful images is a series of canvases with the words from the prophet Micah: do justice, love mercy and walk humbly before God. It is the iconic verse for mission programs, both short-term and long, wanting to do good in the world. Israel was in a bad way at the time of…

In the brickyards of Egypt the Hebrew men worked under harsh taskmasters under the directive of a hard-hearted Pharaoh. In the waters of The Great Nile Hebrew boys drowned under the death edict of the same man, afraid the ferocious fertility of the slaves would overpower them otherwise. The original task of infanticide was handed to the midwives; they were instructed to kill all the boys on the birth stool. But the women conspired together, bringing both boys and girls…

We landed after thirty-plus hours in transit. Jostling carry-on bags and excitement, we made it to the bottom of the stairs, stepping foot into the tarmac in the pitch dark. No lights anywhere. The terminal ahead stood black against the night sky. I scurried across the tarmac, herding my children like chicks, until we reached the threshold and the arms of my awaiting husband. Airport workers and travelers alike were armed with cell phones, not flash lights. To the glow…

Men trapped under cruel taskmasters in the brickyards of Egypt and women losing still-swaddled sons to the watery grave of the Great River. Land, livestock and freedom taken from these families long ago, the Hebrews teetered on the edge of utter hopelessness. Anguish too deep for words—almost. They cried out. A primal scream directed at no one in particular cut through the mire of enslavement. Maybe the recurring nightmare, the nocturnal remembering of round-bellied cows and children prodding them with…

Jesus had just multiplied a few loaves of bread into enough to satiate the hunger of thousands of men, women and children. Baskets of leftovers sat on the shore, presumably forgotten as the disciples hurried into the boat to cross back to the other side. So they bobbed on the boat with Jesus, hungry themselves. Someone must have been kicking himself for forgetting the bread … “Why are you talking of having no bread?” Jesus interrupts. Clearly Jesus saw something…

Fear Not, says every angel and many a prophet. Into our terrain of terror, general or specific, the salvation oracle begins with this imperative. Love, you command. Love your self, your neighbor even your enemy. You leave no escape from the demand, no way out from the risk love requires. And so it is that we live between Fear Not and Enemy Love. It’s a precarious place. The landscape is dark and the enemies real. Principalities and powers don’t easily…