Love without justice is not love. Compassion without deeds is not compassion. Faith without action is not faith. And religion without politics is not religion. In my view, people of faith are not entitled to avoid politics for the sake of a short-lived spiritual high.

Surrender is the last thing, often the only thing, available. And so we give ourselves to it. We fear it is our end. Sometimes—with grace or luck—we find it is our liberation.

Traditions and habits can be changed or broken and that’s not always bad. It doesn’t mean we didn’t learn or like what we did in the past, it just means that we moved on to something else and that’s okay too.

My soul nudged me from a hiding place to confess and to seek forgiveness, and only through the grace of the Great Mystery of Life unfolding around us did I receive the blessing of journeying with a beloved, grieving friend.

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.

In real life, sometimes grief looms largest in December. Sometimes there's one too many dress-ups and the gold tulle makes your legs itch. “I just needed it to stop for a minute. Next time I will take calm breaths.”

There's nothing simple about the holidays. Joy can feel empty when it is compulsory. The promise of liberation is hard fought and well earned.

Advent is about expectation—radical expectations that undo the status quo—and anticipation: a skillful search for the places where liberation rises from the ashes.

What, exactly, are we doing when we invite love into our lives? Surely we know that it's much tidier without it, when things stay at a distance.

Something new could come out of this moment of discomfort; something like healing. This is our opportunity to reimagine what Thanksgiving could be — and who we could be.

A white woman pulled over and ran over to me with a shopping bag. As I looked down at the bag, I had very mixed emotions.

In my small-town congregation, our beloved dead seem to linger with us for a little while.

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.

What had to die was my shame: my belief that I was not worthy of such love. I discovered a greater love within myself as a creation of God, worthy of these gifts.

We could see the main path to the swimming hole ahead, but we had to pick our way through sand spurs to get there. Behind us were rattlesnakes. What did the youth do? They started playing.

Emotional tempests aren’t always easy to weather — pain, grief, disappointment, even love — but the flatness of life without such currents is the slow silence of drowning.

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.

Our family prays at mealtime to practice gratitude in our lives. I love that my children are taking it as their own, finding their own meaning.

Who are the angry birds in my life? What are the sticks I carry in my heart so as not to be hurt again?

It's an impulse of the human self to be known fully, and that’s almost never possible unless we risk the conversations that help us see past our initial impressions.