Book Group Guide Now Available!

Book Group Guide Now Available!

Sometimes these lunches – or brunches or friends’ nights – are mostly about the people and a little bit about the books. Sometimes, the group can barely get their coats off before diving in, and it takes six weeks to say all that needs saying. Either way, this reading...
When 5th Grade Bullies Grow Up

When 5th Grade Bullies Grow Up

My friend choked on the words as she leaned in to repeat them across appetizer plates and pint glasses dripping with condensation. “Eww. Why do you have a mustache?”   Hamburger Mary’s had been loud with music and our laughter a moment ago, but I saw my friend’s...
Recent and Future Reinventions

Recent and Future Reinventions

Packing up my office a month ago, I came across this pencil sketch one awesomely talented parishioner drew and gifted me last year. This is me. Or, this is me as someone else saw me 17 years into a calling and career as a spiritual leader of congregations. Seventeen...
Book Group Guide Now Available!

Goodreads Giveaway Winners!

Congrats to Sam, Thomas, Rachel, Jill, and Jose who won our Advent giveaway on Goodreads! I’ll be dropping your copy of Loving What Doesn’t Last in the mail soon. Looking forward to hearing your reflections as you...
Psalm for Losing a Job

Psalm for Losing a Job

The first time I got laid off, I ran to a bathroom to cry. I am quoted in a trade magazine sniveling something about, “but I really thought we were doing good work, producing something valuable.” (For the record, the image of me crying in the ladies room was exactly...
All Kinds of Healing

All Kinds of Healing

It’s impossible – in the middle of a pandemic – not to notice how often the sacred texts of my religion reference healing. In the stories and psalms of my prayers these past few weeks, I can’t avoid words of healing: One psalm sings of the One who “heals all our...
Holiday Music for the Melancholy Soul

Holiday Music for the Melancholy Soul

Winter Wonderland and Happy Place Late November every year, the hunt is on for that box in garage, basement or attic, that holds the music of the season. (Dating myself here, but most of mine is on CD.) My mother did this, too. In my vivid childhood memory, the...