Yesterday, our seventeen-month-old walked into the kitchen with a slinky stuck on her foot. She was picking up her foot and putting it back down, again and again, trying to loosen her foot from the entanglement but she couldn’t quite get loose. I had to laugh (and maybe take a short video before freeing her) …
On Holidays in a Pandemic
It’s supposed to be a holiday weekend. It’s supposed to be a time and an excuse to take it easy, spend time with family, and rest. Except we are in the midst of a global pandemic. As we watch cases numbers rise, hear about travel bans, and testimonies that the case numbers are only going …
Racial Reckoning
The death of George Floyd took me back to the shooting at Emanuel in Charleston, SC. At the time of the shooting of the Emanuel 9, I was at Emmanuel teaching Bible Study. I was in my first pastorate. The shooter was born and raised just minutes from our church. In the midst of all …
Stepping Into a New Day
One of the routines we quickly implemented in the midst of our quarantine life was a morning walk. For all of us, it helped make the transition between home and school. It helped us breathe in the new day and to look around for signs of Spring and indeed signs of the Divine moving among …
Evening Storms
It’s definitely summer here. As the sun sets, the skies often turn dark me. The darkness is followed by the rolls of thunder and the flash of lightning on the horizon. There’s a mad dash to the porch to pull in the riding toys we’ve been using daily since quarantine, so they don’t rust. Sometimes …
On Figuring It Out
This week has been marked with our four-year-old learning how to pedal a bike with training wheels. The first day and the first tries were frustrating especially as he accidentally reversed his feet and brought the bike to a complete stop not knowing there were foot brakes on the new bike. I watched his face as …
Turning Into Something New
Over the course of our e-learning, we found a lot of things that we could turn into new things. Used toilet paper rolls turned into binoculars. Use milk cartons turned into bird feeders. Pillows turned into rocks to jump through rivers of lava that were threatening the side of the boat which the ottoman turned …
On Being Together
Over and over again, I have heard people saying that they “needed a change of scenery” or that the way we were doing life during quarantine “wasn’t sustainable.” While this is true to a certain extent, here in South Carolina, the travel and the unwillingness to wear masks is having devastating effects. Our case numbers …
On Having More Work to Do
Yesterday, was the five-year remembrance of the fatal shooting of the Emanuel Nine. It was particularly powerful for me that this anniversary fell on a Wednesday night, the same night that a young white man walked into a community of faith’s Bible Study, sat with them, and then opened fire. When this happened, I was …
On Being a Spiritual Director for a Year
This week the pictures began to pop up on my social media feeds reminding me that it was just a year ago that I was commissioned as a spiritual director after a two-year certification program at Lutheran Southern Seminary. I was shocked to realize that it had only been a year since our last …