Category: Blog

Throughout the ordination process in the Presbyterian Church (USA) the candidate for ordination writes and updates her personal Statement of Faith. This one-page document is written in the style of our historic Confessions, and must profess what the candidate believes about essential tenets of faith (as an aside, a Catholic friend was once incredulous when…

What do you see when you look at the world around you? Disappointment, tragedy, loss? Hope, joy, possibility? A messy mix of it all? The challenge of the Christian life is to see with open eyes what is and what could be; to be heartbroken and enraged by the mistreatment of people and the planet,…

I had coffee with my cousin Margaret last week and we caught up on each others lives. She mentioned a new practice she’s taken on this year of setting a one-word intention for each month. Her reasoning resonated with me: there are so many things pulling for our attention and time but we can only…

What quality do you embody when you’re at your best? This question was posed to me a few weeks ago, and I felt overwhelmed with options. This question is both reflective and aspirational. When was I last at “my best” and how did I know? What do I hope to embody when I’m at my…

Last week I attended a restorative justice facilitator training where I learned the practice of community building through circles. This may sound complicated on its face, but it’s actually quite simple. Powerful conversations and relationships are born when people sit in a circle with the intention of presence and connection. In a circle, you can’t…

Most of us are propelled by longing. There’s something we want to accomplish or experience. There’s the person we wish we could be, or the body we wish we had, or the thing we wish we could do, or the person we wish we still had with us. Our longings are our closest friends, whispering…

I met with a student last month who was agonizing over big post-grad decisions: should she take one job over another, or move to one city or the other? After listening to her share about each option, I noticed that each choice was motivated by different priorities. She could prioritize her career in various ways…

A wise friend recently told me that I needed to stop rushing. My days are full from the moment my head leaves the pillow in the morning to the moment I lie back down at night. I couldn’t imagine not rushing from one thing to the next. His advice seemed both silly and impossible. I…

My closest friends have rolled their eyes at me many times over the last few months as I’ve wistfully lingered in endings. I’ve been in an exciting period of newness over the last year, yet struck by how endings always accompany beginnings. I left a community and life I loved in New Haven, but I…

This past weekend, I was invited to preach at a little church tucked into the woods in North Florida. Old Philadelphia was originally built in 1828 as a meeting place for Presbyterians and congregationalists who moved to Gadsden County from Georgia and the Carolinas. The original church burned, and the one that stands today was…