Like many other people, I’ve been working hard to sever my life from Facebook due to frustrations about the abuse of power that company is guilty of, but Facebook has its claws sunk so deeply into our online lives it’s almost impossible. I logged in the other day to find someone’s contact info and was…
My week alone is coming to an end. I’ve been in hermit mode, making a retreat in a cabin in the woods. It’s truly been a grace to be here, to escape from my normal routines and offer some focused energy to a big project. The solitude became a shelter; the quiet like a balm…
Sitting alone in a living room on a dark winter night, I am staring at a screen once again. With a TV buzzing in the background, I scroll down through tragic headlines, past photos of smiling babies and occasional political rants. The warmth of the laptop upon my legs and its glow across my face…
There was a woman who was kind, patient, loving and compassionate. She had a big family. In her later years, in her retirement, she explored new ways of loving and staying in touch with friends and family, especially her grandchildren. She surprised everyone by signing up for Facebook. In fact, she began to use the…
The heavy metal door bangs behind me, the electric buzz locks the bolt in place. After a pause, another door buzzes and is unlocked, controlled by a police officer sitting near a video monitor in another room. I cross the florescent-lit linoleum and open the next heavy metal door, making my way through this threshold…
“O happy fault, that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” ~ “The Exsultet: The Proclamation of Easter” It seems lately that many people around me are having a tough time. Perhaps it’s just my perception but in my day-to-day conversations and my friends’ social media posts, there are many struggling just to keep it together….
Hypocrisy. According to Google, it’s “The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.” It’s a dirty word; the worst of insults in religious circles. Why, then, do those who consider themselves clean of heart, hand and tongue seem to so relish the taste of…
“While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ~ Matthew 9:10-11 This past fall, in the final ramp up to the election, I saw…
“Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” This quote, attributed to author and theologian Ian Maclaren, has been tossed around a lot. I think I first saw it memed on Facebook and most recently I heard it on Krista Tippet’s On Being. It is simple and straightforward and frankly, kind enough,…
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