So the Youghiogheny runs north? my friend interjected into the conversation. She had to, to get a word in edgewise. We all had a lot to say as we were driving through the mountain pass, skirting the arbitrary line that separates Virginia and Maryland from Southern Pennsylvania. The mountains don't respect the division - they … Continue reading The River Runs North
Dancing in Wartime
I used to watch WWII movies, and think ‘There’s a war going on. How can they be dancing?’ It was a perfect mid-summer day, and we sat at a picnic table amid dappled sunlight. So much of what my friend said that afternoon echoed in my heart, but these words came complete with illustrations. Of … Continue reading Dancing in Wartime
Birding & Bombing Iran
There is a common house finch eating in our front yard the moment I learn the United States had bombed Iran. I had just pulled into the driveway after an afternoon hike when the radio announcer interrupted the typical programming to tune in live to a BBC report. I wind down the windows, and leave … Continue reading Birding & Bombing Iran
Waking up to gratitude
How were preachers not ready for this? a friend asked me over the phone. He was talking about how many of our colleagues responded with shock and dismay the week after the election. I was scrubbing the grout on my kitchen floor while I talked with him. I know, I said. I only prepared for … Continue reading Waking up to gratitude
Waiting and becoming
My favorite part of Advent is, without a doubt, 'The Lord is Near', a devotional guide based on the works of Henri Nouwen. It was the source of my favorite seasonal practice of my childhood; my mother invited me to read from the whimsically illustrated pages while she lit the Advent candles by our kitchen … Continue reading Waiting and becoming
Intrapsychic gratitude
It’s called intrapsychic grief, he said. I barely heard him over the taqueria worker dragging a vacuum sideways across the tile floor. The scent from the open bottles of cleaning solution had long eclipsed the memory of guacamole. We were on borrowed time. Intrapsychic grief, he said. It’s grief for what might have been. Until … Continue reading Intrapsychic gratitude
The art of loss, revisted
'The art of losing isn't hard to master', or so says poet Elizabeth Bishop in her well-loved 'One Art'. I've referenced this poem before, and if you haven't read the poem - do. It's a quick-witted and poignant reflection on the death of a partner that likens griefs great and small. And the unifying thread … Continue reading The art of loss, revisted
Feather the clutch
Feather the clutch, he said. First, it was my seminary classmate who spoke these words, gently, as I destroyed the transmission of his Mazda 5 in a church parking lot in El Cerrito. And soon after, a congregant from the church where I had interned, as I blocked an intersection in downtown Juneau with a … Continue reading Feather the clutch
The Divine “Yes” to Reproductive Freedom
But wasn’t Mary a pregnant, unmarried teenager? I remember putting these pieces together during a conversation with a few friends while we were leaving our freshman biology class. We had been talking about the only other pregnant teenager we knew – a junior whose bump had just started to show a few weeks early. She … Continue reading The Divine “Yes” to Reproductive Freedom
gun worship and People Power
I was fourteen-years-old on April 20th, 1999. It was almost the end of the school day when we heard the news that there had been a shooting at a high school in Colorado. The days that followed were strange ones. The names of the two perpetrators were everywhere, as we had yet to realize that … Continue reading gun worship and People Power
Parish on Fire 