Humidity is a kind of spiritual practice. I never thought about it that way until this very day, but I am now convinced that it is true. Humidity has never bothered me much before; I was raised in the South, and where other people wither when the air is damp, I thrive. Out West where I live now, people rave about the low humidity, but my skin, conditioned to all that moisture, physically hurts on particularly dry days. I’m not... Read more
The day began at the airport, the great temple to modern travel. Eleventh Busiest Airport in the Country, a placard proudly proclaimed. The masses of people shuffled towards their encounters with the TSA and surly gate agents. So often our pilgrimages begin this way. Our sacred spaces are mapped out on the tiny napkins where Southwest has printed a map of destinations to which they fly. Here Is Where We Can Go. An hour into the flight, I thought to... Read more
(See the study guide for my new novel, SOULJOURN, here…. the novel invites readers to explore the religions of the world in their own “back yards”.) Updrafts from the Rio Grande Valley pounded a white anvil against the stratosphere as the jet moaned over New Mexico while I looked out the window. I’d just finished reading the letters of Everett Ruess (in “A Vagabond for Beauty”, edited by W.L. Rusho), a graduate of Hollywood High School, who disappeared into the... Read more
I can remember a particular hiking trip with my family. I was probably seven or eight years old, and my parents and my brother and I had been camping, and we decided to hike a trail through some of the lush forests that cover the southeastern United States. My mother, who is a daughter of the southern Appalachians, has always been an astute observer of the forest, and when we happened upon a particular tree beside the trail, she called... Read more
A Review of ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan (Random House, 2013) On the page before the table of contents of Reza Aslan’s new book, ZEALOT, there appears one line from the Gospels: “Do not think I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) Do not think that Aslan, a professor of creative writing at my alma mater, the University of California at... Read more
(I’m working now on a project called SEEDS, LEAVES, ROOTS: Faithful Rhetoric and Reflection for Progressive Social Action. It’s an initiative of Progressive Christians Uniting – I serve on its board of directors. We are creating a “virtual library” of progressive Christian positions on critically important issues. “Seeds” are one or two line “sound bites” on the topic. “Leaves” are “elevator speeches” that summarize the position. “Roots” are articles and research papers that go into depth on the subject, and... Read more
I think we’re embracing these visual social media tools with unprecedented swiftness because we know how images help us see God’s presence in all things. We know that art and architecture has been a venerable gateway to the divine. Read more
I do not know how to begin that process of awakening to my kinship with creation without many and repeated journeys into non-human nature, both local and wilderness, in order to listen in a way that shows me my true identity over and over. Read more
I had heard about the Sloth-man a few days before meeting him in a Quaker house in the mystical cloudforest of Monteverde, Costa Rica. My friends Scott and Becca had a year earlier uprooted their church ministry jobs and two young children to move to this small mountain community that drew thousands of tourists each year and where the rain forest is the most dense in the country, and enchanted with hundreds of varieties of spiders, birds, butterflies, monkeys, iguanas... Read more
Walking in the early morning on the Lizard Head trail under the red cliffs of Sedona, Arizona, last Sunday, I repeated the mantra I often use while taking hikes: “Am I here? Am I here? Am I here?” Was I really present, really awake, to the crunch of dirt under my feet, the calls of small birds flitting among the junipers, the glow of sun on walls of bright stone? Or was I adrift in thoughts of yesterdays and tomorrows?... Read more
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