As best as I’ve tried to shake it these (nearly) forty years, church is in my blood. I grew up in a every-Wednesday-night-and-twice-on-Sunday kinda family. My dad was deacon for many years and my mom helped wherever her gender was allowed, which in those days was usually cooking and

“There’s one thing I hate, all the noise, noise, noise, noise.” — The Grinch Christmas is noisy. Noisy with sounds for sure, the honking and hum of a mall parking lot, the rock concert version of Joy to the World, the overstuffed rooms will so much talking and so little

Week 1 of Advent Advent 2018: The Attention Game Awareness comes to us in the most unlikely of places, if we are willing to pay attention. In the early 2000s, before every other movie was a superhero movie, there was the original X-Men. Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen

Attending to Hope and Fear in the Sacred Everyday November 4, 2008 was a big day for America. Electing our first African American president, in the country that barely survived its institutionalization of African slavery, was a serious and hopeful symbolic moment for this very young nation we all share.

A Reflection on Hallowtide Stanford White was an illustrious Manhattan architect. Builder of expansive Fifth Avenue mansions for the Astors and the Vanderbilts, White was famous for designing the 2nd Madison Square Garden (demolished and rebuilt in 1925) and the triumphant arch in Midtown’s George Washington Park. But what

Having done them all, what I’m learning along the way. “Show me where my armor ends, show me where my skin begins.” — Sleeping at Last, Pluto Ahh, the Ennegram. I struggled with the decision to write this post/essay because I inherently avoid jumping on a bandwagon whenever I

Seeing the “Dumpster Fire” of These Days in a Different Light We love a good renovation story. Take Fixer Upper. Given its influence and unprecedented resonance with so many people, you almost recognize a spiritual quality when the Gaines take an unsuspecting home owner through a total trash heap, and

It has been a week that will be long remembered. Regardless of your political leanings, passions boiled to the surface, fears were exposed and old traumas re-triggered in the public debate over the experiences of Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh. Despite the real pain quaking beneath the surface, lines have

“All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are. ” — Barbara Brown Taylor I recently moved. That feels a little too small. I recently packed up 14 years of life from one state

“The “success” of our faith practice is not found in the image of men who we make into gods, but in the image of God who looks like a man.” It was a hot August when I first set foot on the Willow Creek Community Church campus in South Barrington,