Once I quit drinking, my inner voice and I began the harder work: that of creating a life from which I do not need or want to escape.

Leader: Because the daily pressure of life weighs heavy on our minds, on our bodies, and on our spirits. All: We need a time of sabbath rest. Leader: Because the stresses of our culture often leave us feeling burdened and looking for hope. All: We need a time of sabbath rest....

I invite you now to join me in the spirit of meditation and imagination. Find a comfortable position in your seat and close your eyes. Take a deep breath and try to find the restorative power of air and water in the breath. We must breathe to live, but our bodies also need water to survive. Our...

God is not a distant force, far away. God is in the beating of our hearts and the backbeat of a funky baseline. God is in a four-on-the-floor drum fill, and in the achy joints and sore muscles the day after.

Set up for this ritual: It's especially meaningful to have a congregant bake bread for communion. (If that’s not possible, store bought bread will do.) Cut the bread into cubes and place in baskets lined with napkins. Have a basket of gluten-free crackers available as well. To hold the juice, one...

It has been a difficult week in the news, and as always, we have silent personal struggles in the midst of everything else. And so I invite you into a spirit of prayer....

I trusted the woman at the pharmacy to be capable of hearing hard truth. Bless her wounded heart with its internalized misogyny. She just wants women to love and support each other. Thank you. Me too.

‘Touch binds us together in a way that is warm and builds community.’

Talking about how we hope to die can help avoid needless suffering for our loved ones as well as for ourselves.

Water unites us. All water is one water, shape-shifting as it goes on and on in its unending cycle. The stream we gather by unites us with all the waters of the world, for all of life depends on water. That's why this common, everyday element on which our very lives depend is sacred. In our...

Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not, God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is...

May we find unexpected ways to remember where we came from and imagine where we may go next. May we find touchstones of our pasts, and may they become a foundation for the future.

“There’s a hunger beyond food that’s expressed in food, and that’s why feeding is always a kind of miracle. It speaks to a bigger desire.” Note: one version of this quote, quasi-attributed, appears in Take This Bread (p. 23) by Sara Miles.

Music is my solace and my comfort, the one thing that’s always with me. I feel its vibration deep in my soul; it’s my spiritual practice. Music tells the story of my life.

My heart broke the day my son stood in the bathroom crying. He handed me a pair of scissors and told me to just cut it. I told him how beautiful his hair was and how sad I would be to see him cut it.

Out of the blue, the 5-year-old turned to me and said matter-of-factly, ‘You’re fat.’

Remembering to breathe and to breathe deeply and then once more, to take the breath in and let the breath out, we pause, poised as we are, at a point of risking, at a possibility of courage: #metoo. Risking vulnerability Risking pain Risking being known Risking being not believed Risking being...

I’m not the same person who stood in that tattoo parlor eleven years ago. Still, I don’t for a minute regret being permanently marked with this snapshot in time, of my wounds and my hope.

I wanted so badly to break free and let loose—but I just couldn't. I was stuck in my own false ideas of the congregation's expectations of me. Luckily, there’s still time.

May my wisest self guide me through this day. May she remind me to look through eyes of wonder and see the abundant beauty of Here and Now. to live from my toes up, grounded on this precious earth and in this miraculous body....