Shamanic Running pounding down the hill and toward the river it draws me down every time morning air swelters around me I try to find the rhythm in my stride, my breath grateful for every remaining patch of shade along…
Read MoreLent XI
Switchfoot. Standing here on the brink of Holy Week, I’m glad to be headed in to hear the music of Switchfoot in a live concert in Cincinnati, Ohio at The Underground. Since early November when Switchfoot released their newest album, Hello Hurricane, I’ve been playing it almost daily.
Read MoreLent IX
Spring in Minnesota. I just came in from wrapping up the fifth round of interviews with seminarians who are completing their formal education and moving toward ministry. We held the interview at the Collegeville Institute adjacent to the campus of St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN.
Read MoreLent VIII
Sunshine and Rain: I’ve been out walking in sunshine this late afternoon. And just breathing it all in. This week’s Hebrew Bible text from Isaiah reminded me of a short meditation I wrote five years ago after the “hundred year rain” fell in Death Valley and Joshua Tree, California. Today’s temperatures in the Twin Cities and the blue skies also reminded me of that amazing trip we took during Holy Week 2005.
Read MoreLent VI
Standing in the den two nights ago my husband rubbed his hands through his hair, looked at me and said, “Have I come undone?” I said, “Well, I’m sure you have. Listen to this. . . .” I opened a book and read something I’d found earlier that very day. Stumbled across it really. “Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to, or does, but it may also be that despite one’s best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other” (Judith Butler, Undoing Gender, 2004, 19).
Read MoreLent IV
Lenten Lament on Grief
Yesterday was the first day since Lent began that I did anything I’d call productive for work. Why? Well grief keeps kicking my backside. And all my other sides, for that matter. I’m attending to it. I’m not rushing to get back to things. But it keeps spurting out in surprising and unsettling ways. So I’d like to write an honest lament about grief’s effects on me.
Lent III
“On practicing Our Faith” On practice. On practicing our faith. On practicing our faith with the Jesus story.
Where exactly are we in the Jesus story, right about now? Let’s try to locate ourselves on our journey through the Jesus story. The lectionary. You recall what that is: the list of scriptures that reaches out across the Christian landscape and leads us week by week and season by season through each church year. Each year we follow the Jesus story in the Gospel readings . . .
Lent I
Lent should not ever really begin the way it did. But then tragedy does not seem to have a timetable. At least not one I like. My feelings are still too raw to blog about this now. And some of you who read this are raw as well. So I’ll stick with one of the prayers I prayed in the funeral today. It’s a prayer for children, and it followed a reading of Luke 18:15-17. Jesus Christ, we love our children. You love our children. You love us as your children. And so we bring you our children now . . .
Read MoreAsh Wednesday
“Letting Go: An Ash Wednesday Reflection”
DRIVING TO CHURCH IN THE GATHERING darkness of a late-winter afternoon, I find myself in a state of persistent indecision. By the time I arrive at the Ash Wednesday service at my church, I’ve still reached no conclusion about what I should give up or take up for the Lenten season. Like most years, as Ash Wednesday approaches I wonder what will make my journey more meaningful. What do I need in this season? Some years the need is to let go of some burden; in other years the call is to take up some spiritual practice. Still other years I settle on nothing and wander through Lent more lost than the children of Israel in the wilderness.
