Today I have too many friends who are dying. Sometimes at a memorial service I feel dissatisfied, and I’m the preacher in charge. I realize I can’t figure out how to preach my view of resurrection. I know that people would want to hear it, I’m not worried about offending or confusing anyone. I...

Our locks tell us a lot about our lives. Locks of all kinds hold my attention because of a dream I had when I was thirteen. In the dream a gray-haired woman in a white coat sat behind a desk. I knew she was me, far in the future. Behind her on the wall was a cross-stitched sampler with a motto. I...

When we take fire from our chalice, it does not become less. It becomes more. And so we extinguish our chalice, but we take its light and warmth with us, multiplying their power by all of our lives, and sharing it with the world.

I have learned some things about life from canoes. I’m not saying I know how to paddle. I have been in canoes twice, and both have been learning experiences. The second time was fun. The first time, a friend and I decided to take one out on a lake. We slid the canoe into the water. She hopped in.

All summer, workers have been building a brick wall along the road by my neighborhood. Against the brutal heat, they stretch a tarp overhead to get a little shade. I’ve watched them take bricks in their dusty brown hands one by one, butter them thickly with mortar, line them up, and tap them...

A religion that promises a life without tension, a life without conflict, a life without suffering, is a religion of passivity, a religion of mediocrity, a religion of insignificance. Everything worth doing in the world is a desperate gamble, a game of chance, where nothing is certain. What is love?

Silence is not always golden. Sometimes, silence is a contempt for goodness; silence is a consent for atrocities; silence is a scorn for humanity. Often, it is better to scream.

I have learned to trust those who are witnesses rather than gurus, those who express their confusion as well as their knowledge, and those who share their suffering along with their joy.

Dear God: Good Friday is gone—a dark day on the calendar, A time of suffering—with more losses than gains, And more pain than we thought we could bear. We are tired of crying, We are tired of burying, We are tired of mourning. But Easter is here—and we who survived are prepared For the turning...

During the Advent season, we celebrate the qualities of faith, hope, love, and joy. Yet these must be viewed through the prism of paradox. No Faith is worthy without the capacity to doubt all things—for then it is only credulity. No Hope is possible without the specter of defeat in the wings—for...

All that we need is here now. From the ages of the earth we have gathered energies in wood, coal, oil, and other remnants of life. And the air, it is here too, and it need not be pure. All is ready, here, in the dark. Will you strike yourself against life’s hard surfaces and let the flame out, or...

On this green bank, by this soft stream, We place with joy a votive stone, That memory may their deeds redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone. —Ralph Waldo Emerson A green heron stands motionless on the bank of Emerson’s soft stream. In its beak it holds a fish, just the right size for...

Loving Creator, beyond our understanding yet closer than our breath, breathe into us your love so that we may love ourselves and others as you do. Help heal the fear, hate, and judgment that wound so many....

The Hindu god Indra is said to have created reality as a great net, with jewels at each intersection of the threads. Every jewel is reflected in every other, and they are all connected by the infinite, intricate web. The jewels are sacred and so is the net that connects them. And so I pray: Dear...

By what are you saved?And how? Saved like a bit of string, tucked away in a drawer? Saved like a child rushed from a burning building, already singed and coughing smoke? Or are you salvaged like a car part—the one good door when the rest is wrecked? Do you believe me when I say you are neither...

Where will you go home? These mountains cannot receive you, and there is no cave or grave to be dug for you in your old hills. And still a current of air keeps singing home . . . home as if that meant something you could go to, as if something could finally stand still. Turn then, and keep turning.

What a gathering—the purple tongues of iris licking out at spikes of lupine, the orange crepe skirts of poppies lifting over buttercup and daisy. Who can be grim in the face of such abundance? There is nothing to compare, no need for beauty to compete. The voluptuous rhododendron and the plain...

The universe does not revolve around you. The stars and planets spinning through the ballroom of space dance with one another quite outside of your small life. You cannot hold gravity or seasons; even air and water inevitably evade your grasp. Why not, then, let go?...

When I was a child, I would stand and gaze at the starry firmament and contemplate infinity. As I stood there, the boundary that is time dissolved; I expanded my Spirit to fill the boundary that is space. My being stilled and all fear, anxiety, and anguish disappeared....

For just as the body without the spirit is dead, faith without works is also dead. —James 2:26 Why are we still talking about inclusivity and diversity when we have done so little to make them real? Why are we still looking pained about the lack of diversity in the denomination?...