A family is an emotional system.
Anxiety reverberates all over it. Nobody is protected from it.
That’s the beauty and the challenge of the thing.
It’s been hard, having R operating in a lower gear this week. I’ve said many times here and elsewhere that we don’t have much of a buffer in our lives. Our life, with […]

I recently finished reading The Happiness Project, which I heartily recommend to people who like that sort of thing. (And you know if you do, right?) I’m pretty good about reading self-help books and then never getting around to doing anything they recommend. Am I lazy, or are most self-help books utter crap? You decide.
But […]

What’s the best change you made to the place you live?
That would have to be the dining room turned art room. I actually preached about it last weekend in a sermon on (of all things) repentance. Here’s what I said:
We made a small change this year to our house that has made a huge difference. […]

Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?

2009 was not my best year in this area. It started badly, with a good dozen or so writing assignments due in the first few months […]

R asked last night, “So how many parts of the story are there?” I think there’s just one more piece I want to share, as I reflect upon how this transition has come to pass. Call it the end of the beginning.
Before I get to the substance of the post, I did want to record […]

I am enjoying this series on “What is a Spiritual Practice.” Various writers describe how everyday activities connect us to God/the Holy/the Really Real/the Great Whatever, and Christine Sine has been linking to them on her blog. Recent topics have included everything from composting to blogging to lovemaking.
Living in Suburban Sheol as I do, I […]

Yesterday Bruce remarked on Facebook that he would like to set aside the idea of balance in his life. He described it as “restrictive, ineffective and unrealistic.”
His comment got me thinking about the physiological notion of balance, for example on a tightrope, which is not really about a person walking a perfectly straight path, […]

So I was driving around listening to Studio 360 today and came upon a story that R had already heard and told me about.
If you’re interested in matters of technology, community and the generation gap, listen to it here, under “Suffering for Sufjan.”
Sufjan Stevens had a contest in which the winner would receive an original, […]

I was listening to Speaking of Faith on the way to my spiritual director this morning, and John Kabat-Zinn was talking about the importance of helping kids learn to pay attention. Actually this is something they already know, and we can learn from them, but we can also help them have a greater awareness of […]

1. Kelley asked about my sabbatical grant proposal. (For those who don’t know, the Lilly Endowment awards grants of up to $50,000 to cover sabbatical expenses for the pastor and congregation.) It’s still taking shape, but I am thinking about centering on the theme of Story and Storytelling. I’d like to have some teaching sessions […]

I love the show Speaking of Faith. My friend who knows Krista Tippett says she works like mad and that I really don’t want to be here, and yet… I still want to be her.
I’m listening to a podcast about the Exodus story, with Rabbi Avivah Zornberg talking about the story of Moses and the […]

We had a nice Easter, by and large. Worship, followed by delicious yet low-key dinner, time in the big chair with a magazine, family walk, and pizza for supper.
I found myself having a rather unorthodox thought during worship yesterday. We were reading one of the unison prayers and I thought, We should focus-group this language. […]

This blog might have more than its share of warmed-up leftovers and Stouffer’s frozen lasagna this month, as I tend to the deadlines I mentioned in the my previous post.
I am also leading worship for the women’s conferences at God’s Retreat Center in the Texas Hill Country, and am told that the liturgy needs to […]

That last post took a lot out of me, so I’m going to cheat and share some words from Barbara Brown Taylor. Check out the whole article at the Christian Century, and I think she has a book out soon.

Sometimes when people ask me about my prayer life, I describe hanging laundry on the line. […]

Thanks for the comments on my previous post, asking whether a pastor could be an agnostic and still be a faithful minister of the gospel.
Before I forget, I hope that Keith, a self-described “antagonostic,” will stop by and say something about Marci’s comment about “standing for something or falling for everything,” because I remember his […]

This morning on Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett asked author Mary Doria Russell if she was an agnostic. She said yes and then said jovially, “But the God I almost believe in is the Jewish God!”
This quote and some other stuff I’ve been pondering leads me to ask:
Is it possible for a pastor to be […]

So I’ve been doing the choco-sabbath for almost a month, and it’s been an interesting exercise. There are many days that I have gone without a treat. Sometimes I get the kids in bed and feel energy to read, or e-mail someone or write or whatever. So I skip right over the timeout. That’s good, […]

When R and I went to Scotland two summers ago, one consideration was to decide how we felt about spending so much time, effort and grandmotherly goodwill to leave the kids and visit a foreign country, only to spend the entire time on a tiny island. Wouldn’t it be better to take a tour and […]