How To Retreat (with advice from a 7-year-old)
Once again I saw divinity in this humble, stumbling way—not by escaping my life but diving deeper into it.
Faith and Imagination
God of Nothing
What God isn’t is also what God is–so unknowable that what we can’t say is more God than what we can.
Blind Faith
I can’t even write the words “blind faith” without my skin crawling. Despite forty-six years of attending church and more than half that time intentionally engaged in spiritual practices, enough of me is rational, academic, and post-modern that I’m unwilling to “blindly” do anything.
In Praise of TransParency
Who knows why our bodies are the way they are, fleshy and fit, broken and breaking out, male and female and the spectrum between? Who understands the indomitable nature of our souls? Creation unfurls immeasurable variety, and all of it can be transparent to this unexpected, revising love.
Paper Doll Spirituality
I thought of her over the long weekend without me, pouring all her energy into this paper representation of our family; I imagined her bent over the dining room table, making her passionate “I love you—I love you—I love you” into little flat people she could give hair-dos and tenderly clothe, and I saw finally how we’d each in our own ways been praying all weekend, placing our hearts into this vast, connected, and holy family.
Bi-Focals
The spiritual gifts of bisexuals and transgendered folks reside in the both/and of our bodies. We contain paradox. We defy dualism.
Tending Home
Emily and I recently had one of our two garages torn down (for the sake of more garden) and replaced the hole in our house with a magnificent bay window. The immediate consequences of this project is a house full of dust and a tremendous amount of painting. In my every spare minute I’m sanding …
Faith and Fairies
“I believe in fairies,” Gwyn tells me. “Me, too,” I respond. In our house we tell stories incessantly, and they’re all true. They began with Special Baby, Gwyn’s imaginary friend when she was two years old. Special Baby could do everything Gwyn couldn’t, like go to the library when it was closed and eat extra …
Write, or Be Written
Here’s what excites me about our climate crisis: It invites us to change. “We face a choice that is starkly simple: We must change or be changed,” writes Wendell Berry. “If we fail to change for the better, then we will be changed for the worse.” Okay, so the alternatives are either exciting or terrifying, …
Bucket List
A friend explained to me yesterday why she, a born-and-bred Catholic, is faithfully attending adult education classes at her UCC church, asking hard questions, giving the pastor blunt answers, and otherwise being a rabble-rouser. “I want to know what I believe before I die,” she said. “I don’t want simply to fall back on what …