I felt the knot form in my throat and the tears moisten my eyes. I thought “now stop this, it's only the first museum, so you better pull it together”.

When I was 17, I traveled with other Disciples of Christ youth to the United Nations in New York for an International Affairs seminar. First, we heard a briefing from the Palestinians and then a briefing from the Israelis. I remember how sitting in each briefing I felt complete support for each position.

It arrives unbidden. It sneaks up on us. It oozes in and then rattles us when we didn’t even know there was an occasion. Grief comes not just at the graveyard but also in the ordinary routines of life.

What do you do in your life that is incredibly important to you but deeply challenging to your spirit? Waking up in the night to feed a newborn? Flying across the country to sit with your 88-year-old mom during surgery?

How does it feel to be pushed to the margins? One of my three children started out life as a sports fanatic, but by high school was more drawn to performing arts.

How do we awaken to the awe and wonder of life? In his recent book, “Life’s Too Short Not to Be Religious” author and professor David Dark says “No one awakens all by themselves”.

Burnout, exhaustion, malaise, worry. We all have days when life feels more draining than energizing. Sometimes you are driving home from the office after a 10 hour work day and wondering if there is any food in the fridge to make a nourishing supper for the children. Sometimes you look around and Read More...

It’s hard to put my finger on “the one thing.” For me, it is more a flood of feelings, a series of small moments. They accumulate like layers of fertile soil. A hike up a rocky path in Nicaragua to a young friend's home with dirt floors. A human sling carrying a Read More...

Reading is not just for learning but can be a form of prayer, a spiritual practice.

Someone has said that in the US, the public swimming pools integrated faster than the baptistries. Over the first one hundred years of our congregation’s history, we periodically partnered with sister churches in the African American community. One frequent partner for pulpit exchanges, choir exchanges, book groups, dinner groups and service projects Read More...

Six days of work are spent To make a Sunday quiet That Sabbath may return. It comes in unconcern; We cannot earn or buy it. Suppose rest is not sent Or comes and goes unknown, The light, unseen, unshown. - Wendell Berry, This Day, Collected and New Sabbath Poems I'm counting down Read More...

Five years ago, I spent a long day at the hospital while my husband had surgery. Once Dave was settled in a private room and began slowly recovering from surgery, a church member showed up with Winstead's burger and tots for my dinner. It was like bread from heaven.

Reporter Mary Louise Kelly was in Iraq on a Blackhawk helicopter when her son’s school called from the US to say that he was very sick and needed her to come quickly to pick him up. Every working parent knows this tension of needing to be two places at once. I listened Read More...

“My God my God why have you forsaken me?” This is Jesus’ question on Good Friday. As Jesus is nailed to the cross, abandoned by his friends, taunted by those he came to heal, feed, teach, he cries out in agony and despair from the cross, “My God My God why have you forsaken me?

Why did Noah build the ark? It was because of violence. God “saw that the earth was corrupt”. (Genesis 6:11) Noah built the ark and the flood came, and creation began anew.