"How complicated it is to break silence: to open all of the secrets in all of our broken hearts. But silence does break; truth seeks the light. We're unraveling silence because we have determined that our power with one another is greater than the power someone once had over us."

My pager went off at 2:30 a.m. The nurse on the phone said they didn’t know what to do with this patient and thought maybe I could talk to her.

Someone whispered to me, “Can you pray?” I had no earthly clue what to say. It was a profound gut-level panic. It was the moment I learned to speak the truth as best I understand it, and to hold space for it to bloom.

“If I ask you a question, do you promise to tell me the truth?" For future reference, if a child asks you this question at Christmas time, EVADE.

Living up to my sacred identity is hard! It means remembering that every time I fail to choose grace, or goodness, or peace, I am thoughtlessly squandering my divinity.

NEW: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GmgwxCMApC5FH3l0aNNW2eo1hW7IlfV0TFa… guidelines for Braver/Wiser submissions...

We, the willing, follow the threads to one another; past rightness and quips and tweets. We will find one another and persist past sunrise.

“Though we tremble before uncertain futures, may we meet illness, death, and adversity with strength. May we dance in the face of our fears,” writes trailblazer Gloria Anzaldua, who knew a thing or two about courage. Courage requires both vulnerability and careful strategy. Like other people of...

Life is full of seesaws: it offers us moments of extreme wonder and moments of fear. Sometimes you have to live through the fear for the wonder to arrive.

Each of us at the wedding had unique stories about their life, but most knew how it felt to be an Asian American in this country.

How many times do I need to make mistakes before I’m ready to admit that I’m not any better at this than the bigoted and willfully ignorant?

We have to have faith that in the end our small actions matter. We can’t predict what will happen when a small change has been entered into a complex system; the only thing we can predict is that we’ve changed the future in some way.

Pray, if you pray. Send love and money, too. We will be rolled and covered, but we will rise and carry others with us. Watch for the opportunities to rise and carry. Watch for the holy moments where some people see God.

Remembering is the art of holding a memory and sharing it; it’s drawing upon that memory so it can help us to grow into people who live lives of meaning and service. As a practice, remembering connects us deeply to each other and to the love that sustains us.

Spirit that runs through us all, help me to remember all the ways in which I am connected to others.

Someone had broken into our garage. We picked our way through the space, storage tubs strewn about, ready to make a list of what was missing: two wool sweaters and half a tent. Someone was suffering a misfortune here, but it wasn’t us.

In the moment that I switched to “teacher mode,” I recalled moments in which I had inadvertently said ungracious things. I was fortunate enough to have professors, ministers, and friends illuminate my clumsiness for me. They did so in a way that was gracious enough that it increased my

Our souls and minds need sustenance as much as our physical bodies. May we delight in the ways we find to provide this nourishment to our whole selves.

"Fear's pronoun is singular: I've got to watch out for me and mine. Love's pronoun is plural: we're in this together, and together we can grow things that will blossom even in a time of drought." —Kathleen McTigue My son, Caleb, and I went to Starbucks on a recent Saturday morning. We often do...

I pull another basket of steaming dishes out of the dishwasher in our church basement. My partner in kitchen clean-up grabs a clean dish towel to dab the pools of water from the upturned soup bowls. They ask, “So, what’s your undergrad in?” The conversations that happen in church kitchens are...