Thus far, there has only been one Lenten season I did not start with ashes. The blizzard and sub-zero temperatures were our excuse for not swinging by the church, and when the priest arrived at our family gathering, he had forgotten his ashes back at the rectory. Like us, he was bereft. He was (is) … Continue reading The urgent fragility of ashes →

I don't like Howard Thurman's "The Work of Christmas". You know the poem. When the song of the angels is stilled/When the star in the sky is gone/When the kings and princes are home/When the shepherds are back with their flock/The work of Christmas begins... It is my least favorite Christmas poem, because it calls … Continue reading The work of Inauguration we haven’t started →

If you want him to speak, you'll need to be willing to listen, a colleague said to me when I was in the ordination. My conference (the local United Methodist body) had yet to ordain an openly gay candidate. I had, ostensibly, just come out, and had learned through the grapevine that a conservative member … Continue reading The art of listening and the “maybe” →

I should have accomplished more in this pandemic, I heard someone say in a recent Zoom devotional. The remark touched me, because similar words have come from my own lips. I remember when the pandemic began. I, like many others on my block, managed my early anxiety by making a list of a variety of … Continue reading Guilt to Grace: A New Year’s Journey →

Be sure to follow the news over the holiday, our professor told us as we headed out the door. It was 2002, and I was a freshman journalism student in Washington, DC. Because this is when the powers-that-be do their worst. When no one is paying attention, he practically had to shout over us to … Continue reading Herod, Blackwater, and the War on Christmas →

What are their names? I asked, staring at the picture before me in my spiral-bound Catechism workbook. I don't remember how old I was, but since that time, the image has seared into my brain. Through somewhat blurry sepia-tones, I could make out the bodies of two women - their sandaled feet protruding from under … Continue reading Those women in sandals who died in El Salvador →

I haven't known what to say since the election. I haven't needed to. So many others have said so much, it hardly seems that my two cents would offer anything not already covered in the civic discourse; at least among moderates, liberals, and progressives. That civic discourse, I've noticed, reads one of two ways: A … Continue reading Being right and being good →

How can we tend to our souls in these difficult days? Each day, I say to myself, I will pray. I will center. I will show compassion for those around me. Then, I falter. Then, anxiety calls me, like a siren, into a fog of haphazard distraction. Mindlessly, I scroll the fire updates and the … Continue reading Soul-tending →

For a moment, two weeks ago, I thought that I was home. The air was thick in the darkness, humid like Western Pennsylvania in the summer time, and the roll of thunder outside of my window slowly roused me from sleep. But then I heard the howl of the wind. I woke up with a … Continue reading One day at a time →

On a particularly difficult day, in a series of difficult days, I found myself not only unable to attend to my long to-do list, but also unable to take joy in any other activity. Frozen on the couch, I asked my wife what she thought I should do. (She is also a pastor, and she … Continue reading “Be gentle with yourself” and other lies I tell →