Reflections

My front porch has become my sanctuary, my “altar in the world,” to quote theologian Barbara Brown Taylor. I like to sit on the ledge late at night, my back against the brick. Out here is where I talk to God. Sometimes I use words. Most nights, I sit in silence. Breathing in that fresh night air, something in me expands beyond myself and reconnects me to the larger world, beyond the limits of my mind.

It’s been a long year and the summer is finally upon us. I am still wearing my grandmother’s wedding ring that was gifted to me from my mom. It is my daily reminder that God is faithful, opening our lives in ways unimagined. May this summer bring you unexpected gifts too. I’ll be back online in August.

On Easter Sunday, I finished the Camino de Santiago, an ancient 480.8 mile (773.9 km) pilgrimage across the northern part of Spain. It starts in a village in France and ends in the town Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Unlike the medieval pilgrims who first walked it, I did the Camino virtually.

It’s never easy writing about Easter, or Christmas for that matter. So much pressure to say the right thing, especially this year with three major holidays in parallel: Passover, Easter, Ramadan. I find myself searching for an everyday kind of way to embrace Easter, to remember what it means beyond jellybeans, chocolate bunnies, and never […]

It can be hard to find joy, let alone laughter, in the losses of the past two years and in the immense losses of the war in Ukraine and civil wars around the world. I don’t often understand the divine, but I believe God is active, moving in our lives. Laughter, like grace, takes me by surprise. May it do the same for you, today.

I am reminded as we enter another year of the pandemic that some life events have the power to reshape us. They reorder our galaxies and transform our plans. Who we were before no longer mirrors who we are becoming. I am being reshaped right now. I wish I could see the outcome, but for now, I am trying to rest in the faithfulness of God. I learned that many years ago. And I am relearning it again now.

62.5 more miles to go on my pilgrimage. The Camino de Santiago has been around for more than a thousand years. It’s 480.8 miles across the rolling hills of northern Spain. Medieval pilgrims started where they were. I did the same, virtually, as the pandemic dictated, at the start of 2021… It’s just that I thought I’d already be changed by now.

It’s been hard to talk about God lately. Something in how I experience the divine is shifting, and I can’t really put words to it yet. The old way has fallen away but the new one has yet to emerge. This shifting happens in all of our faith journeys. It’s a natural part of the process.

In this season of reflection and gratitude, I am reminded of what my son and I witnessed seven weeks into the pandemic in May 2020. I offer it again now. May it help us to remember how deeply connected and beloved we all are.

I grew up in the Catholic Church, but not in the ways you’d imagine. It’s true I wore my special Sunday dress to Mass, the one with the flowers and the ribbon tied in the back. I sat in the pew next to my parents.