I know that people who don't believe in God might scoff at the idea that the creator of the universe has the time or inclination to try incessantly (and with not much long-term success) to change my h...
Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God’s grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word. My se...
Everything else is temptation.
But the only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool.
But around God’s table, and around God’s people, you don’t have to pretend or overcompensate. You can just be. And in just being, you can, in the fierce and loving eyes of God, be known, be whole, an...
I can't imagine that the God of the universe is limited to our ideas of God. I can't imagine that God doesn't reveal God's self in countless ways outside of the symbol system of Christianity. In a way...
From demons.
When I tell other Christians of my time with the goddess, I think they expect me to characterize it as a period in my life when I was misguided, and that I have now thankfully come back to both Jesus...
Sometimes help comes from unexpected places.
So often in the church, being a pastor or a spiritual leader means being the example of godly living. A pastor is supposed to be the person who is really good at this Christianity stuff — the person...
So are demons forces that are totally external to us who seek to defy God? Are they just the shadow side of our own souls? Are they social constructions from a premodern era? Bottom line: Who cares? I...
Maybe demons are defined as anything other than God that tries to tell us who we are. And maybe, just moments after Jesus' baptism, when the devil says to him, If you are the Son of God… he does so be...
Many of us would pray not to die in a car crash before we were baptized, like other people pray to not get sick before their employee benefits kick in.
Jesus says, Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. He says, The first shall be last and the last shall be first, and infuriating things like if you seek to find your life you will lose it bu...
It’s about spiritual physics. Something has to die for something new to live.
It would seem that when we are sinned against, when someone else does us harm, we are in some way linked to that sin, connected to that mistreatment like a chain. And our anger, fear, or resentment do...
In ancient Greek, the root of means to throw apart. That which causes us to fracture, to become less whole, is demonic. ... I like to think that when Jesus sent the disciples to cast out demons in hi...
I say no when I should say yes. I say yes when I should say no. I stumble into holy moments not realizing where I am until they are over. I love poorly, then accidently say the right thing at the righ...
I may feel used to the idea that if I live a certain kind of life, I can make myself worthy of God. But what if God’s Word is so much more powerful than our ability to become worthy of God? I mean...
When all of it is given meaning in the larger story of Jesus Christ, it destroys us, then pours our melted selves back into another form that still bears the marks of how we got there. Then we beco...