Blog

God is Not Dead. And God is Not Small Either.

If you have seen the new movie, God is Not Dead, then you probably have strong opinions about it one way or another. In fact, all the reviews bear this out. Either people loved it and think it may just be what saves Western Civilization as we know it, or people are deeply offended by it and think it is one of the worst movies they have ever seen. This movie lives on stereotypes: the atheist academic who tried to make his entire class in his image; the Muslim father with an obvious Middle Eastern accent and appearance who beat … Read the full post

Wondering, Wandering, Witnessing

They came from north, south, east, and west. From Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana. From families, from isolation, from margins, from mothering, from grieving, from working, from wilderness, from thresholds, and from dreams of beloved community. This circle of women who found their way to Avila Retreat Center for the first Wandering Home Retreat brought with them the kind of wisdom, yearning, and openness that can give rise to life-giving community. Throughout our time together we explored the contours of what it could mean to live into the Body of Christ–a body dis-membered by betrayal and injustice, a body instilled … Read the full post

Wandering Home: A Retreat for Women

There are many practicing Christians today who wonder where we fit into the world of church. More and more people understand themselves as on a spiritual journey, but don’t understand institutional religion as a helpful part of that journey. Maybe you are exploring these questions in your own faith walk. Maybe you are involved in the life of a church and want to feel more resonance with its practices. This first time retreat for women may be a place you’d like to come and explore these and other questions.  There are still a few spots available for this event. Scholarships available. .

A Sojourn in Antartica

This is an excerpt from my latest post on the Feminism and Religion blog.

Ok, so it’s not Antarctica, it’s Indiana, but it sure feels like Antarctica lately.

At least it’s what I figure Antarctica must feel like: bone chilling wind that can cause hypothermia and frost bite in a matter of minutes; everything as far as the eye can see white—sometimes no horizon, or blue sky, or any distinction between the celestial world and ours.

I am figuring in Antarctica the animals are masters of knowing how to hunker down and generate their own heat, and how to turn from the wind and be still, and how to burrow into deep snow and gear down into a suspended state until the storm passes… Read more

A Poem: Sister Love

This is a reprint of my latest post on the Feminism and Religion blog.

This post will
never be complete
it can only house the fragments,
the remains
of days at my sister’s hospital bed

the vortex of medical labels
“critically ill”
“brain aneurism”
the singular attention to
fragile body chemistry
sodium, potassium, blood sugar, magnesium

and the waiting,
the watching
the night sentries
my sisters and me
drawn there by love

and held there by devotion
wrapped in the blood histories
the oxygen we have always shared
a common womb that formed us
growing up in proximity to
each other a witness to things
only we understand

my sisters, we clung
to her
to each other
and we each brought
the lifelines we have learned

sister pain is like no other
yes, like no other
deep aquifers of collapsed
genetics
flowing through memories
of common experiences that we
each hold uniquely
with our own distortions
and our own aspirations

All of us
we loved and mothered one another
we despised and admired
we adored and sought each other out
we missed each other
we wanted more
settled for less
hoped for better
emulated, deviated
and delighted in
and loved that we were, we are
sisters

by that bed
“Come Lord Jesus,” my prayer
my instincts
tuned to the love
to her sweet ways of understanding and caring
to her tenderness as a mother
and as a sister
to her keen mind
and her strength
I asked for mercy, mercy

amidst prayers of groaning
and embraced bodies
washes of tears
peace and
sisters
ghosts and present and accounted for

me became we
and we became new
and she found
her way back
to us

and our
regenerating cells and new pathways
and a history
with old/new ways
together

Be-pistemology– My Newest Post on the Feminism and Religion blog

I am a quarterly contributor to the Feminism and Religion blog. You will find part of my latest post here on my site. For the entire post you can click here. And, as always, hope to hear from you about what you think!

Eventide

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide

There are some beautiful things to behold
in darkness
velvety, deep, smooth darkness
 
It is here, in the dark, that I find
the freedom to cry out
to a universe that
spins out into infinite possibilities
 
and hard realities
like leaving and flux
and excruciating kinds of
waiting and anticipation
 
there are voices here, there
in the night times
of life’s unfolding
bidding the coming of mornings that
slowly march into new days
unknowns, goodbyes, rear view mirrors
reflecting back what had been givenness
now fleeting, now past
 
I abide in this vortex
with you, sisters and brothers of
deep living darkness
cousins and neighbors of goodbyes
and thank yous
and until we meet agains
 
I float in this black ocean womb
gestating
and living into, out of ALL
yes ALL-from millipedes to multitudes
and tiny little moments that
stick, hitch on for the ride
 
of fast flowing eventides
ticking clocks sing a strange
discrete second, by second, by second
when really, my friends, the sound
of time passing is more
 
like silence that I find
at night, home, alone
though not alone at all
it is a thick nectar, a
bitter swallowing sweet
flowing…. yes
 
to life, its change, its
pulse, its soft hard rhythm
and mine, yours, ours
theirs
 
this eventide
will go down in
herstory as
a swimming, floating, grieving
fleeting re-membering
of life gathering up itself
 
to move and to surrender
to a truth I must trust
that holding on folds in
to letting go
and believing
that in flowing, fleeting
moments life knits itself
 
through into cosmic embrace
and gentle washes
abrupt, startling familiar
new/old vibrations
that kindle belief in what might be dawning
 
and what has been precious
and will always be food
for souls hungry from
all our walking, wondering, wandering ways
 
that bid us sometimes to rest
indeed, to abide
and be home
only to ascent
to a sun that rises and says,
now go
 
and mercy will come along
beside.

To Be Well

The Gospel of John, Chapter 5, verses 1-9 is the text for this sermon preached on May 5, 2013 at Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill, NC. “Do you want to be made well?” Jesus’ question to the man on the mat waiting at the healing pool sounds almost rhetorical at first. “Do you want to be made well?”  Jesus says. Thirty-eight years the man hovered near those healing waters, waiting for someone to help him, waiting for a way to make those last steps. For thirty-eight years he contemplated how to find healing.  And he had tried–feebly, … Read the full post

Feminism and Football

I am a quarterly blogger on the Feminism and Religion website.  My post up this week is on how race and privilege affected the NCAA investigation of the football program at University of North Carolina.  If you enjoyed the Calling Audibles series, you will want to check out this post.  If you are interested in issues of white privilege and race, you will want to read it, too.  And if you are just curious about how in the world feminism and football could possibly have anything to say to each other, then I hope you’ll read on and let me know what you think. Here are the first couple of paragraphs.

Courage

Before this “day after” the Boston Marathon bombing had a chance to see morning light, my eight year old daughter called out for me.  It was a nightmare that woke her from her sleep.   I always ask, in my bleary state, for my children to tell me about the dreams that startle them awake and scare them enough to call me in.   Hopefully telling them out loud can help us let them go or find a new way to finish them.   Sometimes we look for reassurances in our waking world for what we would do if ever … Read the full post