Please enjoy this post by my friend, recent graduate of Central Seminary, and chaplain, Kim McKay Allen. ย In todayโs blog she tells us how she survived the onset of the global pandemic this spring while completing her internship and seminary…
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How do we shift the balance of ourย internalย narratives, so that we become witnesses rather than victims of our fear, grief, pain, and trauma? Recently our host, Eileen Campbell-Reed led a webinar for the Wayne Oates Institute: โWorking with People in…
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Rev. Dr. Beverly Wallace has spent her life caring for grief. Although she is currently associate pastor of Congregational and Community Care at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dr. Wallaceย did not start out with any intention of being a…
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“So much of Zen practice is about warm hand to warm hand transmission.” Ian Case who is the Director of the Brooklyn Zen Center is our guest this week on Three Minute Ministry Mentor. Ian will also be graduating from…
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This week we want to share a wonderful guest blog by my friends and fellow ministers, Erin Robinson Hall and Mary Elizabeth Hill Hanchey. Today marks eight weeks of pandemic life at my house. The pile up of grief is…
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Teaching and learning are essential aspects of human development. From parenting to governing, from sports team to PTA, and from ministry to industry, human beings are creatures who can learn and grow from first cry to final breath. How we…
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We need new rituals for #PandemicGrief. This is our space to gather and collect our best practices for grieving in this season of isolation. Part of the struggle of leaning into joy or beauty — which are desperately needed for…
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If we talk about joy all the time, are we ignoring the great needs and suffering of the world? ~ Mary Clark Moschella In the season of the Coronavirus Pandemic, this is a very important question. Can we indeed hold…
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Holy Week Stop. Drop. And Listen. Holy week is upon us. As one of the two most intense weeks of the church year, perhaps you feel tempted. I know I have been. Tempted to make everything as meaningful and wondrous…
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Are you a minister or chaplain, an activist or congregational pastor? Whatever your role in ministry, you are now living and working in an unprecedented worldwide season of the coronavirus pandemic. And we want to support you as youย bring…
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In this week’s episode of the Three Minute Ministry Mentor, I share a story from my first call in ministry. I have preached about thisย moment when I missed the point, thinking the call was for someone else. In particular…
Read MoreAbout sixteen and a half years ago, my Grandma Campbell died. I was in the midst of a long and difficult search for my “first call.” I had been interviewed by nearly a dozen churches and religious agencies. Some went well. Others were dismal. None of them was working out. Altogether they had worn my soul thin.
Read MoreAll Saints’ Eve . . . I spent the last few days at the American Academy of Religion . . . and came home in time for Halloween Trick-or-Treat. Driving home this afternoon I thought of the many friends old and young who have been lost to me. So many of them will be remembered this year on the first All Saints’ Day following their deaths.
Read MoreA Peach is Worth a Thousand Words. Summer time is here with a blazing fury. Temperatures up. Windows rolled down. Rolling along with blues on the radio. Somehow that low steady beat underneath and all kinds of fun and mischief floating across the top of it suits me just fine this morning.
Read MoreSwitchfoot. 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 MoreStanding in the den two nights ago my husband rubbed his hands through his hair, looked at me and said, โHave I come undone?โ I said, โWell, Iโm sure you have. Listen to this. . . .โ I opened a book and read something Iโd found earlier that very day. Stumbled across it really. โLetโs 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 oneโs best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the otherโ (Judith Butler, Undoing Gender, 2004, 19).
Read MoreLenten Lament on Grief
Yesterday was the first day since Lent began that I did anything Iโd call productive for work. Why? Well grief keeps kicking my backside. And all my other sides, for that matter. Iโm attending to it. Iโm not rushing to get back to things. But it keeps spurting out in surprising and unsettling ways. So Iโd like to write an honest lament about griefโs effects on me.
