For the last two weeks, I have been knee-deep in Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning. I reserved this book at the library after a summer study of his book How to Be Antiracist. I knew there was more that I needed to learn. I knew there were stories and experiences that I had […]
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As we were on our morning walk, the five-year-old asked, “Why are people taking their Christmas decorations down and we aren’t?” It’s the kind of question that a clergy parent waits and hopes for. I explained that Christmas isn’t over on December 25 and in fact the season after Christmas is the time that we
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Each year, a word crystallizes as the word of the year. It’s never at the beginning and rarely clear until there later in the year. This year was surprising to be sure. In January, we celebrated our daughter’s first birthday surrounded by friends and family at one of our favorite restaurants. In February, I accepted
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For the past four years, I have participated in a book challenge where I set the goal of reading 50 books. I have never reached that goal. Until this year. As our lives slowly drifted to being at home more, I found myself not only reading the books that had been sitting on the shelf,
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Richard Rohr in his daily mediation on December 29 described the fixed point saying: The fixed point is our place to stand. It is a contemplative stance: steady, centered, poised, and rooted. To be contemplative, we have to have a slight distance from the world to allow time for withdrawal from business as usual, for
This week is the week where Christmas and Christmastide collide every year. For many who celebrate a cultural Christmas, this week is full of taking down decorations, reorganizing, and decluttering in order to get ready for the New Year. For me, this is the week for basking in the light of all five candles blazing:
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This year, our Christmas tree lights have been on more often than ever before. We’ve always turned our Christmas tree on whenever we were home and this year we’ve been home a lot. This is the first year that we haven’t traveled during Christmas week. This is the first year we haven’t seen family during
Advent is the official beginning of the church calendar. It comes before the new calendar year and for many clergy, it is the kick off to starting over in telling the good news of the coming of the Divine here on earth. This year this starting over begins at the end of a long journey
As we brought our Christmas Tree into our house this year, I worried there wouldn’t be space for it. Our house is currently serving as a preschool, a business office, a home to four kids, two adults and two dogs, and a sanctuary during the Advent season for virtual worship services. Where would it go?
There is so much about this holiday season that’s different. There are gatherings we can’t go to, traditions that are not safe in the midst of a pandemic, and constant changes all around us. When things feel different, sometimes I find myself retreating into the mindset “This will never get better. The holidays are ruined.”
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