“The Lord be with you,” I proclaim to begin a class. “And also with you,” the students answer. We follow this greeting by responsively reading a psalm aloud. My class at a Christian university meets only three times a week and reads only one psalm each time, but I’m...
“Why would God make one of the Ten Commandments about jealousy? Nobody can control jealousy!” asked my 7-year-old. Good question. Once, my first impulse might have been to say, “So we try harder.” Big mistake. When my younger daughter was very small, she would wriggle...
When I was nine, my family moved to a seven-acre plot of land. At night, cicadas buzzed and lightening bugs rose simultaneously with a mist from the creek. We ate mulberries from the tree while slapping mosquitos, and I trained tender pale-green pea vines up wire...
I’m venting, pounding my palms on the car steering wheel as I drive the 20 minutes to a Franciscan center where my church is hosting a day retreat. I’m resentful, mad at my husband, and mad at myself because I feel he talked me into something I didn’t want to do. This...
