Prayer Beyond Words
As my view of God expanded, I felt as if I could quietly sit in that loving presence. Words didn’t return so I just sat.
How Place Shapes Our View of God
“Say it again,” they urged me. I felt like an animal in a cage, surrounded by the watchful eyes of gleeful children who poked at its helpless form with a stick. My fellow college-aged camp counselors hailed mostly from Canada and the Northeastern United States. Much of the kitchen crew came from the United Kingdom….
Wandering the Labyrinth Together
I focused on the end of my fingertip, where it met circuitous lines on the crackled pink paper. I tried not to look ahead and how much of the journey remained but centered my attention on where I was on the path in that moment. The pastor played gentle background music for our small group…
Cultivating Silence in a Noisy World
Spinning thoughts felt like a whirlpool crashing in my mind, threatening to pull me under. I fidgeted and ached for the relief of the alarm signaling 20 minutes had finally passed. For years, this has been what my sporadic attempts at contemplative prayer have felt like—total failure. I started dipping my toes in the water…
People Are Worth Knowing
We love our boxes. They are handy compartments for our ideas and thoughts. They keep life simpler when we can put people into tidy categories that make sense to us. I traveled to half a dozen countries and lived in three outside my own before I really began to see just how impossible it is…
How Contagious Is Our Faith?
We couldn’t understand but a few words of the mass but the beautiful, flowing Arabic was music to our ears, rising up to the heavens along with the sweet-smelling incense. Not only was the language new to our ears, having only studied it for a couple months, but this was the first mass we’d ever…
Exchanging Stuffing for Stuffed Grape Leaves
The holidays have always been a time of togetherness and feasting for my family. When crispness enters the air, bringing relief from the stifling Georgia summer, my mind turns to standing in my mom’s kitchen and making noodles or pound cake, pulling out the card table to make room for everyone in the kitchen. The…
Preparing for the Promise
“’The day will come’, says the Lord ‘when I will do for Israel and Judah all the good things I have promised them. In those days and at that time I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. In that day…
Alone in the Pit
I stood surrounded by stone on all sides, elbow to elbow with others inside the small stone room. The pit. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what it felt like to be in this dungeon alone, in complete darkness. I shuddered and opened them again. I didn’t want to experience what Jesus felt…
You Turn Our Grieving into Joy
After a day of rest, Thursday of Holy Week was a full, pivotal day in the life and death of Jesus. The Gospel of John summarizes the beginning of Holy Week in one chapter (John 12) but devotes five and a half chapters to Thursday. Jesus shared the Passover (the Last Supper) with His Disciples,…
Going Home {Stories of Redemption}
When I was young my grandma called it, “going home.” We would pile books and our pillows into the backseat and watch cities and farms go by on our nine hour drive from Georgia to the small-town in Indiana where my grandparents grew up. I visited cousins and went from house to house in this…
That Day {How Much Life Changed September 12, 2001}
Most people in our generation will always remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001. It is actually September 12 that sticks in my mind as a pivotal day in my life and faith. On 9/11 I did what thousands of others probably did. I sat glued to the television,…
Walking with “The” Jesus Alone
Though I have spent over three months in India, all told, my grasp of Hindi doesn’t extend past a few memorized phrases and songs. I have never sat down and really studied the beautiful language for myself. One thing I do know is that Hindi doesn’t have a definite article comparable to the English “the”…
That Day (How My Life Changed September 12, 2001)
Most people in our generation will always remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001. It is actually September 12 that sticks in my mind as a pivotal day in my life and faith. On 9/11 I did what thousands of others probably did. I sat glued to the television,…