Advent invites us to introspection. We consider the year as it winds to an end, we consider the resolutions we so optimistically made eleven months ago (if we even remember them), we consider how we hope to move forward as we prepare to turn yet another page on the calendar. Many of our bloggers this week… Read More
Friday Festival: The spaces we inhabit
At the end of a week full of media input, a busy work schedule juggling tasks even more varied than usual, and with a day off full of appointments ahead, I’m mindful of the spaces we inhabit. Sometimes we have control over our own environments, but more often not. This week, our bloggers take us… Read More
Friday Festival: Dawn and Dusk
Shorter days are coming in some parts of the world, while others are finding longer, sunnier days. In the U.S., I find this time of year hard, as the dark and the cold take a mental toll. I found sustenance in our bloggers’ reflections on light, new dawns, and the beauty of twilight. A new… Read More
Friday Festival
It has been while since I actually wrote anything for Friday Festival. This is my bad: a mixture of house move; lethargy; lack of inspiration and general feeling of burden carrying that spilled over into everything. every. thing. However! A new month, in a new call, in a new decade (for me) seems to have… Read More
Friday Festival: Taking Notice
Living in a manse across from the church my wife serves, on a corner where both streets are well-traveled, and given that we spend a fair amount of time outside with our two dogs, and some of those times one is less willing than the other to embark on a walk, we feel noticed —… Read More
Friday Festival: Connections, Broken and Whole
Our bloggers are guiding our minds to the connections of the heart this week. Turning from weariness to gratitude, Kristin Berkey-Abbott notices a parallel between herself and the living things in the garden, “The milkweed is blooming this week–these are plants that have been eaten back to bare stalks several times since I bought them… Read More
Friday Festival: Stories told and lessons learned
I’m coaching some new clients, and our initial sessions always include some intentional conversation about their lives and ministry settings. A quick recitation of facts can only tell us so much about a person or a predicament. When we go deeper, not only do we get to know the storyteller, but we may also see… Read More
Friday Festival: It’s the Little Things
The world seems pretty overwhelming these days. We watch hurricanes and tornadoes and floods and fires destroy the lives of thousands of people, and we don’t even know how to start grieving. We worry that we have passed a tipping point in the destruction of the earth. We worry that we have passed a tipping… Read More
Friday Festival: Storms
When I was a child, at the first sign of the deep blue midday sky, my anxiety-ridden stomach would begin to churn. I knew what was coming but didn’t know the severity. Sometimes tornado sirens would wail in the background. Other times, we would just experience a run-of-the-mill summer storm. After I moved to Florida… Read More
Friday Festival: Relationships Reconsidered
With honesty and tenderness, our bloggers are considering relationships this week – with God, with Jesus, with our stuff and with a lamented mother, who has just died. The hard work of stopping the rush of her life has Sally Coleman thinking about where God is inviting her to sing a new song. “I have… Read More
