Often at the Three Minute Ministry Mentor we write and share about integration, but integrating loss and grief is a slightly different topic. This week we continue our conversation with Dr. Joyce Ann Mercer of Yale Divinity School about loss…
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Music that carries you and me through our lives is worth noting. Songs, hymns, and everyday music can be a source of profound healing. Music connects us to our communities. It holds memories and engenders hope. It is a relational…
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Editor’s Note: Today we welcome Rev. Elizabeth Hagan as our guest! Most recently Elizabeth served the Palisades Community Church in Washington, DC as senior minister. She is a graduate of Samford University and Duke Divinity School. She is also the…
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Trauma inflicts its wounds in a moment, yet recovery may take a lifetime. With proper attention and care, however, healing is possible. +++++++ Earlier this week, I wrote about Trauma Informed Leadership. And I shared information that all spiritual, health…
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This summer has been one of the hardest on record. What a gift to have the wisdom, insights, and pastoral presence of Rev. Dr. Stephanie Crumpton to guide and inspire us! This week, Dr. Crumpton, who is associate professor at …
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This week we continue our conversation with Dr. Stephanie Crumpton about caring for girls and women who have experienced violence. Earlier we talked about the complexity and intentionality of care, particularly for Black women and girls. Our focus today is…
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Sometimes help is literally in the palm of our hands and we cannot see it. Sometimes our ability to see or imagine or welcome the things we need in life is blocked by the kind of deeply seated beliefs and…
Read MoreLast night pastors, congregations, professors and students gathered from all around Nashville, Tennessee, to remember the nine men and women who were brutally murdered in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17 at Mother Emmanuel AME Church. We met at Woodmont Baptist…
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It Takes Two Hands In our extended families we stretch out Christmas for several days. And we try to keep our family meals and gift exchanges to one-per-day. Christmas 2011 is in the books now. It was enjoyable for the…
Read MoreHeroic Journey Today I ran my second long race. A half marathon. I ran my first in April of this year and wrote about it here. Since my run in April, I’ve continued to train. I was consistent except during…
Read MoreShamanic 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 MoreAsh Wednesday “In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die. Where you invest your love, you invest your life. Awake my soul.” — Mumford and Sons Today is the day. Ash Wednesday. We begin the trek…
Read MoreAnd we need healing from so many things in our lives. The very religious traditions that shape us are broken and sometimes do more harm than good. The institutions and the texts themselves stand in need of healing. The light of the Christ candle was taken symbolically to places in the sanctuary where those gathered could receive healing touch or light a candle to honor their own deep need or the needs of others. It is a standing invitation. . .
Read MoreHealing Part III: Honest Music
I’ve found myself in the past couple of years in search of music that speaks to life. Really speaks to life.
So much popular music is mainly the girl meets boy (or boy meets girl) variety of sentimental or sensual romance. I’m not totally against this. It just has limits. I’m looking for the kind of lyrics and musical composition that goes deeper than feelings and hormones.
Healing
Part II: Trees
One of this Sunday’s passages is Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21.
As one commentator summarized it: “The conclusion of Revelation has seemed to many interpreters to be a bit choppy, a barely-held-together conglomeration of leftover pieces, stumbling toward the close of the book.” I’ll say.
Earlier this week I heard a sermon which dealt with the morass of endings by focusing on one image from the text: the tree of life. Just that phrase took me like a hyperlink to one of the most healing images of my own life time . . . . the tree of life.
Read MoreI’ve wanted to start a series on healing for several weeks now. But every time I get plans underway it seems something new crops up that needs healing . . . like discovering how many files are really unrecoverable from my defunct hard drive, or seeing our drowned garden, or finding myself living in a city experiencing its worst devastation since the Civil War.
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