Thoughts on the New Zealand massacre from a counselor

He was learning that the Qu’ran was filled with commandments to kill the infidel and about jihad and that Muslims were dangerous, bad people.

License to interpret: the Bible and same-sex relationships

It will be four years this June since the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in the United States. This post might feel a little behind the times given all the societal changes going on already. But as many of you know all too well, the church often drags its feet when it comes to change, coming kicking and screaming into relevance -- if it isn’t already too late when it gets there.

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love letter for a friend

(for 2-27-16) We sit around this corner table in your favorite Memphis brewery, the four of us, you and your love and me and mine. A few hours ago we were down by the riverside, balancing on a log, balancing each other on a log. Down by the riverside, arm in arm in arm in …

simplicity and farmer’s markets

(from Tuesday, 2-9-16) The canal path is white today and the bare tree branches dusted with snow; the flakes come down and greet my eyeballs with a handshake. The simplicity and the beauty of the snow make me think: what do I really want from life? Where will I find my joy? Because I recognize …

how we worship

This small congregation of 12, the ones K. tears up for when preaching about them in sermons, the ones who have to close their doors in too few days, too few to allow K. to be ordained in the church building he was raised up in. Where is the line between thriving and surviving? What …

heart-opening Quaker meeting

(January 10, 2016) It is First Day, Sunday, Quaker meeting. Today is his first visit to my holy place, my sacred ground. Only a couple of people are in the meeting room when we arrive and there is something so vulnerable and intimate about that. I’ve learned by now that when I bring friends here …

two weekends in the woods

(January 3, 2016) I like to imagine myself as a deer in the woods; long-legged and leaping from one place to next. This is how I envision my experience. In reality, in the woods, I follow my love (not to the fields, Wendell Berry – the woods are even better) and am so happy to …

new year new me

January 1, 2016 In a wood-floor room with huge windows that look upon the meandering river below, the dancers make a circle. Everybody has a partner and we will progress around the circle, switching partners; no eye will be unlooked upon. I have been coming to these dances long enough that I finally feel comfortable, …

joy, and undoing the knowing

(12-28-15) My friend unwraps Reese’s bells with the greatest deliberation and sets them before himself on the counter. One, two, three, four. He stuffs them all into his mouth at once because they taste better that way. Tears roll down my cheeks, my abs ache, I can’t breathe. I laugh every time just remembering it. …

Ode to a Gnat

Oh gnat, I hate you with a perfect hate a hate I wish were lovingkindness so I'll write an ode instead.   The gnat buzzes in my ears, hovers around my face, lands on my skin and I have come to see that this is the expression of the gnat's love for me.   Oh …