So, I’m still thinking about grief.  Maybe it’s those wailing women in Jerusalem still on my mind.  Maybe it’s the change in the season.  Maybe it’s the pain of people around me.  Maybe it’s my own.  I don’t really know the reason grief keeps coming to mind, but I tell myself what I would probably tell anybody: grief isn’t something to dismiss out of hand anyway.  Grief deserves—well, maybe even requires—lots of thought.  And not just thought . . .... Read more

I was talking with a friend the other day about the strangeness of new experiences.  I’ve noticed lately this unfamiliar sensation of newness in much of my life and, instead of running screaming in the other direction, I was explaining to him that I am beginning to recognize this strange feeling as a good thing. “I don’t know . . . I guess I am beginning to look for that vague discomfort—it lets me know I am headed in the... Read more

Last week I noticed one day that I was feeling really anxious.  I’m pretty sure I wasn’t having an anxiety attack, at least as I have heard them described.  But I can report that I felt inexplicably, well, I guess you could say, nervous.  I first noticed this anxiety when I had a few quiet moments to pull out a library book I was just about finished reading.  I noticed: I couldn’t sit still; my stomach was in knots, my... Read more

Conversations With Jesus: The Daughters of Jerusalem Luke 23: 26 – 31 I’ve tried and tried to imagine this week what it must have felt like to be among the “daughters of Jerusalem” as Jesus calls them in today’s Gospel passage from the Gospel of Luke.  There they found themselves that day, crushed in among the crowd of folks who lined the road and followed along behind Jesus up the hill toward Golgotha—the place of the skull—the place he would... Read more

I had the strangest dream. It was a conversation, but I don’t really know with whom, exactly. Whoever he was, he said he wanted to ask me a question.  He said that it might be a hard or uncomfortable question, but that he really wanted to know if I trusted him enough to go there with him. “What’s the thing in your life about which you are most ashamed?  What are the sad and broken and pain-filled things that lie... Read more

She made me call a meeting. I wasn’t sure.  It’s not exactly PC to admit you have a whole bunch of clamoring voices in your head, much less to call them all to a meeting.  (Um, isn’t there a medical diagnosis for that?) She insisted.  She said to imagine a big table, room for all the voices, with me at the end of the table, chairing the meeting.  It would be like an audience, she said.  I would listen. I... Read more

I have been known to write from time to time about my yoga class on this blog. I would say my yoga “practice” but that seems a little bit pretentious, not to mention vaguely dishonest in my case.  Nevertheless, it is true that in shocking contrast to my normal stance on organized exercise classes, I have been known to attend a local Tuesday night yoga class.  It’s funny, I find sometimes that my hour and a half in yoga class... Read more

Conversations With Jesus: The Ten Lepers Luke 17:11-19  I used to think the Gospel of Mark was my favorite of the four Gospels, but I have to say that for me, these past two weeks Luke has been giving Mark a run for his money.  There’s so much going on in Luke—so many interesting literary techniques, such great plot development, so many characters that just stick with you.  Lucky for us, we’re right in the middle of some of these... Read more

Jesus was forever having  conversations…all different kinds of conversations.  Imagine with us now: what if you were the centurion? Conversations with Jesus: The Centurion Luke 7:1-10 From: [email protected] To: Friends and Family List Re: You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Me . . . Dear Friends and Family: Greetings from Capernaum! It’s me, Claudius, with a brand new email address.  Make sure to save it in your address books.  I hope you’ll excuse the mass email, but I wanted to... Read more