It was in those first couple months that I fell in love with liturgy, the ancient pattern of worship shared mainly in the Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox, and Episcopal churches. It felt like a gift that...
If the Gospel is where we find healing from the harm done to us by the messages of the church, then it must also be where we find freedom. Meaning that even if it is the last thing I want to do, I abs...
If religion has been the venue in which the power of sex is taken most seriously, could it also become the place in which a new conversation about it arises? One that is not afflicted with legalism an...
I often think that the effort we put into trying to pretend something about us is true — that we are less than we are or more than we are or that one aspect of ourselves is the whole story — is based...
Holiness is the thing I never saw coming that makes me catch my breath because I know the sacred has interrupted my isolation.
Her relationship to God wasn’t doctrinal. It was functional.
For all the misguided harmful messages of my religious upbringing, I still cherish that I was raised in a family where things mattered. Our lives bore a continual inflection of faith. I belonged to a...
But here's the problem with capital total abstinence: when our country made drinking illegal and instilled fear in children about the evils of alcohol, it led, not to increase of holiness, but to a c...
This God, is revealed in Jesus Christ, who became flesh and walked among us full of grace and truth and who is so for us and with us that he would go to the grave on our behalf—when
Resurrection, we are made new. On the third day, Jesus rose again, and we do not need to be afraid. To sing to God amidst sorrow is to defiantly proclaim, like Mary Magdalene did to the apostles, and...
People have been fed spoonfuls of nonsense and told it was Jesus.
Very often I will avoid the truth until my face goes red like a toddler avoiding her nap; until limp limbed, she finally stops flailing and falls asleep and receives rest—the very thing she needs and...
The fact is, we are all, at once, bearers of the gospel and receivers of it. We meet the needs of others and have our needs met. And
Sin is the self curved in on the self.
Sex for Sara was at first incredibly painful, and for Tim incredibly frustrating. They both felt inadequate, angry, and confused, alternately blaming themselves and then each other. They had been told...
Repentance, thinking differently afterward, is what happens to me when the truth of who I am and the truth of who God is scatter the darkness of competing ideas.
My selfishness is not the end-all… instead, it’s that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit.
In a way, I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understan...
I wrote once in a prayer, Dear God, your work in the world is always done by sinners, or else it would never get done; help us to realize this and practice the grace and forgiveness you first gave us....
I started to imagine Mary tugging at the shirt of Jesus and saying, I will not keep silent. I will obey you and I will tell others to obey you but I will not keep silent. People are thirsty. In John's...