John’s body was less like mine than anyone else’s in the room. In that room full of people with some very unique bodies and abilities, that was saying a lot. It was the end of a weekend I spent on retreat with L’Arche, which is a set of communities of people with disabilities and the people who choose to build a life with them. L’Arche retreats are celebrations that, in some ways, put Burning Man to shame in creating an environment where everyone can unapologetically be themselves. I knew the people in room were experts in living with unique limitations and gifts, but I still could not imagine how the evening would…
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I recently wrote a guest post for Dr. David J Dunn on his blog. He is a great friend and amazing theologian with sharp contemporary insights. I am writing for a different audience and focusing on the positives of what other’s have experienced as a horrible childhood. I like to think of it as rich and challenging experience that didn’t entirely push me over the edge. These are thoughts on the best of it. “I have always wanted to be holy, I just could never figure out how. As a very young child in the Church of the Nazarene I would hear wondrous stories of revival and passion and…
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Help Me Get This Sadness Out My House. A Story About Rubber Gloves and Grace.
Years ago I got caught in a pretty debilitating depression. I let things snowball to a point I felt I had little or no refuge left. Every part of life looked bleak including my own bedroom. On weekends I would lie in bed all day and look at piles of laundry, fast food wrappers, stacks of unopened bills and just junk. Blech. It literally made it hard to get out of bed in the morning (or sometimes in the afternoon). One could sprain an ankle on the way to the bathroom. At one point it became difficult for me to imagine that the room would ever be…
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Ashes, Ashes. We all Fall Down.
For some time it has been rumored that the children’s rhyme, “Ring around the Rosie,” was a creepy rhyme born during the era of the Black Plague. That may be more the stuff of legend than of history, but it also makes a little sense. For when faced when imminent and pervasive death, humans, and children in particular, have interesting ways of coping. These little mechanisms also shine a little light on why it is such good news to have an Ash Wednesday to take pervasive death and darkness and turn it on its head.
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St. Benedict goes to Burning Man.
What do Benedictines have to do with Burning Man?. Well, not much. It is a Ven diagram with very little overlap ( I think I’ll wear my leopard skin habit with the blinky hood? #notsomuch). But there is a reason I live happily wedged between these two very self-conscious groups of trouble makers. And as we tip-toe across these last few hours of ordinary time and into a new season (meaning different things to each community) I have been compelled to really reflect on what is happening in my life because I how I live with these people and all of their, well, religious practices.
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How to be a Valentine: A Note on Martyrdom.
Today is a feast, a gift and remembrance, of an occasion I have yet see Hallmark really nail with one of its watercolored limericks: there once was a man so in love with God that he was beheaded for performing marriages in opposition to war. In defense of hallmark, that is a very hard picture to paint with water colors… In the third century, Emperor Claudius had declared marriage illegal in order to encourage more young men to volunteer to be soldiers. Valentine, a celibate priest, opposed both the aggressive violence of the empire as well as the notion that the state alone held the reins of marriage. …
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This is How I Am Pro-Life. Now may I please have that phrase back?
I hope the way I live with children celebrates their lives. I hope men and women keep loving and enjoying each other and having more kids. I hope those kids know I love them even before conception. I hope I create community so no one in my life feels like a ‘single’ parent. I hope I honor my father’s memory and love him after death. I hope the women in my life know I think their breasts can be life giving miracles as well as something others desire. I hope I help women love their own breasts and bodies as desirable miracles.
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The Lightbulb Conspiracy: Epiphany reminds us to go looking for God in all the wrong places
Before their were lightbulbs, what would you put over a person’s head in a cartoon to show they had a bright idea or an epiphany? Candles seem like waxy danger. Today is the day we celebrate the day people started to really ‘get’ who Jesus was and it its a little surprising who these folks end up being. Its also surprising who not only didn’t get it, they tried to shut the “Jesus” thing down. On this the day we ccelebrate Epiphany, I think “getting” who these people really were, might also give us a little epiphany about who Jesus is as well.
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Hope is Found Between. December 25
I am not one to whom hope comes easily, But it does come.
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On the eve of hope, into such a world.
Today I listened to even more stories hard to hear, Stories that were never meant to have to be told. I am reminded there are places where life is still taken from the young, children are unwanted or used, and innocence can be traded for cigarettes and bags of chips. It is this very world into which every child is born. This life, with all of its risks and violence, is where every human body has to live. We like to think we do our best. Not everyone does. Some tearthrough the landscape of life like a wildfire out of control. This is the world into which every baby…
