In one week we go to New Orleans to work with children in the lower 9th ward. I find myself considering them in little moments throughout my days: these kiddos I have never met. What are there stories? What has life looked like through their lenses? Where were they when the waters were rising after the levies broke? Who grabbed them and lifted them up? Who loves them fiercely and who do they love?

OK, sometimes the Bible can be a little kinky. I am really enjoying this week’s passage from Galatians, chapter 5, “For you were called to freedom, sisters and brothers; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You …

A seminary professor of mine, Stephanie Paulsell, once talked about a dilemma she experienced as part of the diverse worshiping community of Harvard Divinity School (HDS). HDS is both an ecumenical and a multi-faith environment, and every Wednesday we would gather to create ‘suspended space’ and to worship together. At times it got confusing and awkward, as you would imagine, …

Theologians talk about a ‘God-shaped hole.’ I wonder if most of us don’t also have a specific ‘church-shaped hole’ that we long to fill with intimate, life-giving community. As we move through life we look for safe spaces to bring our weary souls and for circles of people to trust to teach us more about the wisdom of Jesus.   …

What gives evidence to the wind?

Artists have a hard time capturing and portraying the movement of the air. It is much easier to simply allude to the wind by depicting the objects that it moves: stalks of wildflowers dancing on a breeze, ripples of waves on the surface of a pond, hair blown across the cheek of a beloved.

“I hope that readers, whether or not they are religious, will be able to take away Jesus’ message: Don’t be afraid. That they’ll find ways to act; to feed others, to accept being fed by others; that they’ll be willing to open up to people very different from themselves.”
Sara Miles, author Take this Bread

This week we conclude our book and celebrate the seventh or final Sunday of Eastertide. Honestly, maintaining a feast mindset and searching for the liberating message of the resurrected Christ in scripture, in life, in community for 50 days can start to feel like hard work.
There are a lot of reasons for this. Often it is when we have time to rest, as we are invited to do during Easter, that the demons which we keep at bay by being busy make themselves known. So we can start to crave a distraction.
Also we live in a dominant culture with a weird relationship to food and feasting. As Sara so bluntly puts it “As a nation, we’re obsessed with food, afraid of it, and deeply out of touch with what it means to sit down and eat real food with other people. We’re surrounded by abundance, we’re fat, and we’re starving (288).” It is hard to develop a healthy relationship to feasting when we are bombarded by aggressive advertisements for cheap calories and surrounded by a national discourse that values cheap, quick words over deep engagement with complex issues.

So some of us gathered on Monday for a tour of the Southwood United Methodist Church to see if we might be interested in moving in there and becoming a cooperative parish or sharing space in some other way. (Southwood is a gay-friendly (indeed mostly gay) small congregation in Oak Cliff that hosts a community garden and is looking for ways to share their facility with other like-minded folks so we were invited to check it out.)

The words ‘possible brain tumor’ are powerful enough to startle any one of us back to a space of noting the wind on our cheek and giving thanks for caring relationships. Bill was so appreciative of all of the prayers over the past two days and kept calling us ‘God’s angels on earth.’

The more time I spend in and with this community, the deeper I sense the connections that are here. The power of long-term friendships and the ways that unfolding, tender new ones can give profound encouragement and hope. The mystery of relating to people, with all their particular bumps and bruises, yet somehow also participating in the body of Christ. Bill offers us all a simple reminder which echoes the scripture passage of the week: to love one another fiercely is our work.

My cousin Chuck passed away on Friday and I’m headed to his memorial service tomorrow so the blog post comes early this week. I’ve been remembering Chuck in little passing moments since I heard the news. Chuck enjoyed his life and his enjoyment rubbed off on other people. A big man, he would don a silly hat with a pig snout on it, a family tradition, and preside over the auction/fundraiser at our annual reunion with a grin and booming voice. He proudly held up and sold off handmade quilts, quarts of pear preserves, and other goodies contributed mostly by the old-timers and bought by the younger generations