I think I can finally breathe again, awakened from the shell -shock. But the deep grief — it lingers.   I have waited to post for many reasons. Most of all, however, I want to be an agent of God’s peace on this earth, even though right now I feel anything but peaceful. I have, as usual, much to say.   First, congratulations to those of you who wanted Drumpf to win. I understand that your feelings run just as... Read more

Dear Madame Secretary Clinton, My great-grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth Oliver, was a suffragette. She fought so that women could have the vote, and once we got it, she enjoyed a long life in politics. She became the president of the New Jersey Women’s Republican League, lunched at the governor’s mansion often, and traveled as a delegate to the convention to award the nomination to her party’s candidate. According to her diary, she worked to repeal the 18th amendment “and the evils... Read more

Recently Rachel Held Evans posted this simple sentence on her Facebook page: Evangelicalism: Where Jen Hatmaker gets ridiculed and condemned and Donald Drumpf embraced. And it got me thinking. I read Matthew Vines’ Book God And The Gay Christian a few years ago. It’s chock-full of thought provoking stuff, and I highly suggest you read it. In it, Matthew poses a theory that I found fascinating, and that has stuck with me ever since: Homophobia is rooted in misogyny. In a... Read more

I started a very different post — it was an angrier one than this will probably be. I’m tired. This might have to do with the rather large amount of Halloween candy I ate all day in an attempt to numb my feelings. I’m so tired, I actually can’t even comment on a polite and constructive political conversation on my Facebook page. I’m exhausted from having to explain why women’s rights matter. They matter in every day life, on college... Read more

In the Jordanian desert, there is a little girl who has no hair. I will call her Maya, though her protector asked me to not use her real name if I used her picture.  Maya, along with her brother, is a refugee. She and her family have fled the bombings and violence of Syria to find refuge in the Jordanian desert. It’s a desert that, while beautiful, is colorless; hot in summer and cold in winter. Most of all, it... Read more

I met some amazing women in Jordan who are doing phenomenal things. Some of these women I got to speak with for a period of time, others, just long enough to snap their picture. Each of them lead lives different from mine and yet, in many ways, the same. Read on to meet a social entrepreneur, a leader of churches who serves refugees, and some Bedouin saleswomen I met in the mountains of Petra.    When I think of the... Read more

  My suitcase was huge. I was on my way to Jordan – yes, THAT Jordan, the Middle East! — an amazing place of desert sun and ancient ruins; this land of gently spiced food that smells of smoky roasted meat, the freshest of vegetables, the warmest of newly baked pita. It’s a place filled with smiles, and it is warm not just for the sun that shines there, but for the hearts that beat in its people. There is... Read more