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.

I choose to believe in community. I choose to believe in the difficult, slow work of building a common life.

We give thanks for your presence among us. You are living examples of courage and perseverance. We give thanks for the stories you have collected through the years. By sharing your stories, you help shape ours. We give thanks for the many tasks you have undertaken for the betterment of others. We...

Tell me the story of my birth, and help me understand how you were changed the day I entered the world. Help me know love, deep in my bones.

Recently, I ordered 4-foot-tall rainbow bunnies for my church. Just after I hit “order,” I wondered if we really needed them. Later that day, one of my parishioners sent me a picture taken in front of a local church: on the lawn was an enormous banner with a picture of the Holy Family, and the...

However imperfectly I may be living this life of mine, there’s no one better at it, and there’s no one else who can do it for me.

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.

I want the spaces in which we meet to be encased by aspirations and forward loving, not affirmations and self-applause. I want to love the people I disagree with, knowing that we’re all just out to find a little more life.

When we say, "Save the rainforest," we don’t mean that we cease to honor the mighty cedars or the reaching pines. We mean that one particular piece of a deeply sacred whole is more at risk than others, and that this risk, this threat, is worthy of our very bravest actions. So it is with black...

Among other wonders of our lives, we are alive with one another, we live here in the light of this unlikely world that isn’t ours for long. May we spend generously the time we are given. May we enact our responsibilities as thoroughly as we enjoy our pleasures....

It would be a quieter holiday, no fireworks or loud parades, no speeches, no salutes to any flag, a day of staying home instead of crowding away, a day we celebrate nothing gained in war but what we’re given — how the sun’s warmth is democratic, touching everyone, and the rain is democratic...

In real life, we can only place the pieces, one by one, and see what kind of picture we create. Sometimes we turn out to have chosen the wrong piece. Sometimes the picture is wildly unexpected.

I know deep in my spirit that I am held by the Mystery; part of the Mystery and witness to it; an agent of stardust whose perception of the world might not be all that there is to see.

This trio of poems in multiple voices imagines the journey of Jesus’ followers, from the gates of the city to the empty tomb. At the Gate He came in on a donkey, But we greeted him as a King. The crowd was huge that day. As though all of Jerusalem’s poor, tired, downtrodden had flooded into the...

What if we encouraged and celebrated each other for who we are? What if, instead of criticizing, we challenged with love, affirming the good we see in one another?

"Where are you a pastor?" It's not an uncommon question when you've chosen to do ministry in a small, rural town, especially when you wear a clerical collar much of the time. I'm getting used to the puzzled looks on people's faces as they struggle to reconcile a genderqueer body in this...

Last year for Lent, I decided to say yes to any request. I made it all the way to Easter without  having to honor my decision.

"Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion."

To offer hospitality, we first have to identify ourselves — sometimes in inconvenient or uncomfortable ways — as helpers; as willing to offer kindness or connection to someone we might disagree with.

Hallelujah! is a dangerous word, especially in the mouths of the creatively maladjusted.* Hallelujah! is a dangerous word, for it comes always with an exclamation point. Hallelujah!...