It’s been roughly two years since I lost my best friend, Brother Martin Gonzales. Martin had been my closest friend for over 21 years, which was 43% of my life at the time he died—so a lot of my life. We met in 2000 at the reception desk of the Trappist monastery in Lafayette, Oregon where he had been a monk since 1950. To me, Martin was like a conduit of Divine love at a time when I doubted that... Read more
Though I am no expert on the path of mystical Judaism called Kabbalah, my thinking about God has been profoundly shaped by it. This is because I happened upon Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, teacher of Kabbalah, in the mid-2010s, in an OnBeing interview where he narrated an illustration of God that gave contour and language to images impacting my own heart and mind. This image arrived like a long-awaited messenger, weaving together threads of thought, intuition, and longing I’d had for... Read more
June is Pride Month and I’m newly introduced to the upcoming tradition of Affirming Sunday (June 4; #AffirmingSunday). I encourage you to mark it in some way in your own church. This new Christian tradition asks churches both to embrace pride, and to actively demonstrate affirmation of the lives and struggles of LGBTQ people in our communities. Full inclusion and participation are needed if everyone in spiritual communities is to experience God’s unfathomable love and inclusion. If we have experienced... Read more
{For the beginning of this series, click HERE} When should we tell our loved ones we are unwell? What is the balance between transparency, and ‘not making them worry’? In the past few weeks, I’ve had moments of reprieve from the lupus crash that ensued in early March. The wolf at my door wandered away for a spell (lupus = wolf, in Latin). But she quickly came back. During the reprieves, I allowed myself to schedule some outings—with my daughter... Read more
Transformation beats moralism. But as a young adult, effort was my mantra. And effort, coupled with an adolescent zest to save the world, was perilous. In my early 20s, I stumbled my way through so many “good deeds,” it is painful to look back. The time I began buying food for a physically challenged, low-income woman and her teenaged daughter, then was unable to continue after one month, despite creating an impression of commitment. They welcomed me into their tiny... Read more
Recent research shows Americans pray in droves! I don’t know about you, but I am surprised and delighted by this. I’m also surprised to find I’m surprised. After all, prayer is almost as old as humanity. Americans do affiliate less with formal religion than in centuries past. But why would I—why would anyone—surmise that they also pray less? And people surveyed pray for the reasons people have always prayed: foremost, to connect with the divine. Secondarily, to lift up those... Read more
She was nose down in dense clover, tail feathers up and wings askew like an ill-fated paper airplane. No movement, and seemingly no way to right her injured self from the expanses of oxalis that had overtaken my late-summer garden. Whenever a bird strikes my front window, my eyes dart in that direction; if I don’t see the bird rebound and fly away, I scan the bed below the window for a sign. After eleven years in this house, I’ve... Read more
On the farm where I live, we have several animals—cows, chickens, turkeys. But foremost in my heart are the cats. We have six housecats and one barn cat, which is to say, a lot of cats. It wasn’t always this way. Two sibling cats were abandoned on the farm during the pandemic, and one of these lasses quickly had kittens—some of whom stayed on. Six is a lot of cats, yet I love each one with focused appreciation; and I... Read more
{For the beginning of this series, click HERE} In a guestroom, I placed a small wooden plaque instructing, “Just live your little life.” I like the admonition. And I need it. Most of us have little lives. Not unimportant or trivial lives, but lives that don’t rock the world. There are the powerful, influential people who usher in movements or manage large organizations or invent cures or other inventions. There are even the select few who are successful and well-known... Read more
On the surface, this week’s gospel reading at the end of John (John 20:19-31) is a story about doubt and belief, and a recounting of an appearance by Jesus before his disciples. But I can’t read it without drawing in biblical studies. Because one of the key aspects of this passage is the statement “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John was the last of the gospels, written many decades after Jesus’ life. The writer... Read more
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