There’s a couple of sentences my friend Marlena has in her book, The Way Up is Down, that I can never seem to get out of my head: “And yet even the waiting room of my life remains God-haunted. Really, what I am is God-intoxicated, a staggering drunk.” I return to these sentences now because life itself feels like a perpetual waiting room. Our family lounges in the waiting room when it comes to our housing situation. I hang out... Read more
You know how when you get something new, learn something new or become something new, that new thing seems to show up everywhere you turn? Years ago, I bought a Volkswagen Jetta …and suddenly, it’s like I saw Jettas everywhere. And I didn’t just see the car, it’s like I felt a kinship with the driver of that car. Oh, you drive a Jetta? I drive a Jetta. Does your Jetta also smell like crayons? I get you, Jetta-driver. I get you.... Read more
A funny thing happened on the way to the school the other day: I began interacting with other fleshy humans once again. Now, I don’t know what it’s like in your neck of the woods, but we’ve been pretty closed off in the San Francisco Bay Area. A myriad of businesses have continued in their restrictions, and depending on what county you live in, dining in isn’t allowed (but getting take-out is). Working out indoors and sharing the same recycled... Read more
There’s a scene I write about in my book, when my father-in-law and I visited the Mississippi State Capital together. The building was pretty empty, so we strolled our way through various corridors; I stared at forgotten faces of history, while he shared with me the stories that run inside his blood. Near the end of our time there, we stumbled upon the Senate House and into the adjacent shoe shine room. After I asked him why the Confederate flag still hung... Read more
It’s always an honor to get to preach the Good News! This last weekend I got to (virtually) join our beloved old church in Seattle, St. Andrew’s Episcopal. Watch the sermon, which stems from John 2:13-22, on YouTube, or simply read it in full below. Enjoy! — Well, St. Andrews, it is GOOD to be with you today – even if it’s not in person, even if we’re still doing this thing called “gathering together as the hands and feet of... Read more
My friend Christopher says that each and every human is a theotropic enigma – theotropic meaning “God-facing” and enigma meaning “mystery.” Ever since he broke it down for me in his book, With Gladness, I started looking for those God-facing mysteries in the world around me. I saw it in Costco: an older man held up bunch after bunch of bananas, sniffing each of them. Finally, he closed his eyes, tilted his head back and exhaled an audible sigh. He’d... Read more
Perhaps like preachers across America, I couldn’t help but point folks towards inaugural poet Amanda Gorman’s prophetic words, alongside the lectionary readings. Please, pre-order copies of her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” her poetry book, The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, or her children’s book, Change Sings, if you haven’t already, and directly support this young Black woman’s work. Otherwise, here’s a link to yesterday’s sermon – text below. Enjoy! — On Wednesday morning, my husband, James, and our two young... Read more
With the new year comes new reading intentions, and if you’re anything like me, you’ve taken a deep dive into 2021 with a stack of books by your side. For me, as I glanced at the reading I did in 2020 – 128 books, to be sure – I couldn’t help but notice that nearly two-thirds of the books I completed were fiction. Now, there’s nothing wrong with fiction: fiction teaches us and changes us just as much as non-fiction... Read more
A couple of days ago, I sat staring at Psalm 90. Really, I needed to write a piece around the psalm, but even the mere act of writing – especially when it comes to Scripture – takes a little bit of sitting with and staring at and mulling over before takeaways really come to me. That morning, I found myself drawn to the second and third verses: Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth... Read more
A couple of weeks ago I got a rejection, or shall I say, yet another rejection. In a way, I feel like I’ve been living in a series of rejections, when the words and thoughts and ideas I put out into the universe seemingly come back as void. When stay-at-home orders first began ten months ago, the mandate hit me smack in the face. Our boys went to school on a Friday, only to learn that they wouldn’t return for... Read more
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