There are so many spiritual lessons from the natural world and—in a season filled with Ingatherings and Water Communions—this is one for me: oxbow lakes as a beautiful combination of resiliency, strength, and flexibility.

It was my inadvertent letting go that made this wild, interdependent beauty possible. And at that very moment, I knew I didn’t need that sort of control anymore.

"We are the people who return to love like a North Star and to the truth that we are greater together than we are alone." —Rev. Theresa Soto, in "We Hold Hope Close" I spend a lot of my Saturday evenings feeling awkward at wedding receptions, because most guests don’t want to talk to The...

As a hospital chaplain, I often listen to painful stories. We call it compassionate presence, but I may be crying inside. When words fail, I pray and sing.

If justice is to be realized, our voices must speak loudly—even boisterously—of love.

People of color—and other marginalized people—can’t just want things to be different. It has to be everyone wanting things to be different for everyone.

The stone soup story isn’t about selfish people. It’s about people who thought they were powerless.

When we can gently hold things steady, change comes from within; that’s where the real growth happens.

Who are you going to be, today? And tomorrow? Who are we all becoming, together?

It's hard to feel gratitude for something when you're focusing on what’s wrong with it.

I call the tall bush on my back patio “Burning Bush” because in autumn its leaves are a fiery red. All winter long I overlooked three uninhabited nests inside of it. For months and months I could have perceived—but didn’t—what was in plain sight. ...

We can’t always predict which choices will wind up having a huge impact on us, whether it's bringing home a stuffed animal or taking a particular train to Oxford Circus.

Sometimes people show up fully and be with me. And sometimes they cannot, even if they really care about me and want to help.

When I internalize cultural messages about the definitions of success or failure—or anything, really—I undermine my own sense of self-worth.

A haircut, a cup of coffee, or just an honest “How are you?” can be transformed into a powerful moment between two people living in a hard world.

I saw a woman surrounded by the pressures to conform to adulthood, being the adult she always wanted to be when she was a child. She was as God made her, not who everyone else wanted her to be.

What could you accomplish this week if you knew you had a ground team wishing you well? Who are the other explorers around you, needing a word of encouragement that would mean so much coming from you?

Despite being warmly welcomed over and over by the greeters, by the family sitting behind me, and by the lead pastor, I couldn’t shake that “guest” feeling.

It is deeply spiritual work to learn to treat ourselves with compassion; to learn to see ourselves, if only in moments, the same way we look at something or someone we find beautiful: a newborn baby, the ocean, a sunset.

Outside of the meditation hall, we plan for the future and think of the past. But so often we replay past regrets and worry about future events to the point where we’re no longer present in the present.