Blessing a Cultural Threshold
A threshold is a place of letting go of an old identity and waiting on a new identity to emerge. It is a liminal moment when the sacred is being born in us, a time of unravelling and slowly reknitting back together.
Struggle is Faithfulness: Thoughts from Inside Chronic Illness
However, is God directly responsible for one person’s healing while another suffers or dies? When God gets credit for the first outcome but not the second, it leaves the second person (and/or their loved ones) invisible, insignificant, and clearly excluded from God’s circle of care.
Come to Me All You Who are Angry
Sketch drawn from a photograph in the Associated Press. A woman in the crowd lowers her mask to wail when she hears the grand jury decision regarding the death of Breonna Taylor.
A Viral Prayer in the Age of COVID-19
It was a moment, a moment of extraordinary unity and goodwill. I am afraid the moment has passed. We are a year in now.
‘Not Real Christians’: Communal Confession for a Faith Divided
We must still raise our voices to denounce Christian pursuit of power and boldly denounce cycles of violence perpetuated in the name of Jesus. We also seek that justice be given to those involved in last week’s events. Nevertheless, we can still own and apologize to a watching world the sins that our fellow siblings have committed.
On Thanksgiving: An Honest Home in the Uncomfortable ‘Both’
But this little plot of land, where my son swings from oak branches beside the bayou . . . where we make mashed potatoes for three instead of twenty-three . . . where I call home . . . is much more than just a settler's trophy. We live in Caddo territory, or so it was before the Treaty of Cession of 1835.
For These Next Seven Days: A Prayer for Those Filled With Dread
Let not our hearts sink into anxiety and dread by the unceasing spin cycle of 24 hour news or the bread and circuses of the imperial intrigue. Instead . . .
Cathedral of the Tropics and Worshipping Through a Pandemic
Our reactions and feelings of loss toward having our weekly temple worship stripped away might reveal something of an idolatry within us. Have we become too dependent, too anchored, too confined to the temple walls and to the warm fuzzies we get from the familiarity with our siblings in the church?
For Every Time: A Prayer for Moral Revival
For every time we preached about the blood of Jesus and did not talk about the blood of Breonna Taylor…George Floyd…Ahamad Arbury…Jacob Blake…and so many more…[Say all their names!]. We repent and we turn toward justice.
When Children Learn They Are Black
This society does not give voice, as a rule, to the experiences little children carry about how they “learned” they were black in this country.