You know that phrase, eighty percent of success is showing up? That’s what Sunday’s parable feels like to me. (Who knew that Woody Allen and Jesus shared a philosophy?) The workers who endured the long hours and heat of the day earned exactly the same wages as the people who worked for about an hour before… Read More
Tuesday Prayer
God, I’m sitting in a deep well a grief. I hear the noise and movement from life outside of the painful bubble in which I currently abide. I wish that I could be with those carrying on the everyday-ness of life. But right now, God, it’s you and me in this space of mourning. Far… Read More
Thursday Prayer
I told someone the other day that you have this way of moving. Of moving us. I told them about how you see us over here. And want us to go over there. So you shift your weight and lug us heavy-headed ones along. Sometimes you toss something sparkly out front to make us look.… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
Tender God, we lift toward you the makeshift family of all those joined together by shared suffering. Look with mercy, we beg you, on your people displaced by ethnic cleansing, carrying their belongings on weary backs, on those cleaning up after earthquakes and storms, looking at the wreck of their homes, searching through rubble for… Read More
Tuesday Prayer
God of breathing in and out, of the beating hearts and brain waves, we know that our finite bodies cannot last forever. But when the aches set in or our loved ones are abiding in their final days, it still seems too soon. When the decline starts or the end nears, give us strength in… Read More
The Pastoral is Political: Animals of the Flood
I remember where I was 16 years ago today when I learned what began happening at 8:46 a.m. in the United States. And I remember where I was the next few days: watching the news coverage in disbelief, trying to make sense of the never-before experienced. Now, Hurricane Irma has been having the same effect… Read More
Sunday Prayer
Holy One, On this day, in this hour, at this very moment, We turn our whole hearts and minds and souls to You. Meet us in our beings, as we bid You to come in and stay. There is so much, even too much to pray for, and yet we beseech you with our… Read More
Thursday Prayer
God, Lord, Buddy, We need ya. Everything is on fire. The winds and rains are swirling again. Policies are shifting and courtrooms churning. My neighbors are afraid. And I’m supposed to plan a budget. Write a curriculum. Teach about peace and justice and love and hope. But the whole world is pulling and burning and… Read More
Wednesday Prayer
God who turns the seasons, spinning one into the next and leaving us in awe, we marvel at the coming of fall and spring. And, even so, we pray today for those threatened by water, made homeless by storms, and weary from cleaning up nature’s devastation. We have been careless with the world you gave… Read More
Tuesday Prayer
God whose presence and love goes beyond words, I have no idea what to say today. As I face the tearful grief of a family Or the complex relationships life brings, Give me the exact words that need to be spoken. Or maybe whatever sentences exit my mouth will be a mess. In that case,… Read More
