As I have walked with individuals and families along the journey of grief, one of the reflections I’ve heard again and again is their surprise that the day after a loss or tragedy, the light still comes in the morning. As we were walking yesterday, I felt the same surprise. How could the day look …
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: …
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 …
One of our favorite things to do as we are on our morning bike ride and walk is to find our shadows and watch how they change as we turn onto new roads and the sun rises higher. As we were walking the other morning, I found our shadows seemed to be everywhere. Their presence …
Going to the library has always been a part of our weekly routine. It is a place where I always found comfort and a place I knew I wanted our kids to find refuge. One of the last memories of “normal” life was a field trip to the main library branch where not only as …
As we were on our morning bike ride and walk, our four-year-old stopped just up ahead and of me. He waited until I caught him to him and then looked at him with a glint in his eye, “Did I do it right?” he asked me. I waited unsure of what he was talking about …
We lose a lot of stuff around the house. There is a basket full of cars, but we can’t find the one car we really really need before we can do anything else. Our sixteen-month-old has figured out how to open the toy drawer and the trash can, so we lose pacis left and right. …
I can remember when it was finally time to share that our Eastertide secret pregnancy wasn’t going to be one filled with hope and new life, but grief. I can remember the gasp of joy as I shared with my congregation that we were pregnant and the gasps of grief as I shared that we …
As the morning dawned, the women who had prepared spices two days earlier, the day that Jesus died hurried to the tomb. They had saved this act of remembering the life of the one they loved to observe the sabbath. In my mind, they spent that day in exhausted rest. The kind that can only …
The first post I wrote called “Leaning Into Lent” wasn’t supposed to start a series of reflections. It was supposed to be an invocation and an invitation to be present in the season of Lent. It was supposed to be a challenge for me, someone who loves Lent, to lean even further into understanding more …
