Just Faith, Everyday

If you look long enough—say, for 20 years—you might find a place that feels like home, even if it isn’t. This place might fill your own memories and experiences in a way unexpected, maybe even catch you off-guard with its charm: a place where you can find your favorite foods from at least three different cultures, though not quite your own. A place where your friends come and go with such frequency you don’t realize how much you’re learning from this until years later when you feel their loss with a keener sense. A place where you can count on seeing others commit themselves to something good and where you actually know each other by face—small enough for this. This place also has its faults: its ego, its backwardness, a lifestyle you’re unaccustomed to but willing to put up with just to be close to the beauty and to the goodness that’s left when you finally find a way to look past the bullshit. But you’re cheating on this hometown, visiting with other cities, dreaming of other places ...

I am not sure what to say about guns and children and killing that has not already been said.  I can say that it’s beyond frustrating—indeed, disheartening—to see the kinds of immoral arguments for the maiming of life that those who stand for clearly believe without questioning. I feel myself challenged in my faith to accept these individuals as brother and sisters—and yet I do, and I desire deeply for their conversation of heart. For us to see the same Gospel with the same eyes, not with the dubious trust in metal and commerce, not with this self-interest, not with murder and malice and maiming, but with the same heart these children exhibit when they see a wrong and know it to be wrong (and speak out against the wrong unabashedly).  I am still, at the age of 45, astounded at the ways to which we can disagree as human beings on things that should be clear-cut, that matter most. It’s a God-send, I think, that into my hands—right now— came Arun Gandhi’s book The Gift of Anger. ...

How many times have you found yourself wondering where you got the strength or ability or fortitude to get through something that seems impossible?  I’m seeing this pattern in my life more and more, and part of it comes from taking time for meditation to create awareness of what’s already there. In my middle age I find it striking to learn some things later than my peers, even as I have made it a personal life goal to study the soul and the spirit.  What’s happened is that God sent my way a bevy of people doing the same, challenging me and making me even better, and calling me to make them better by turn. Little by little we’re heightening each other’s creativity and awareness, and that’s meant for me perhaps the best birthday present ever: this sense that my age is a gift in itself. It comes with so many things, this full package. I’ve been hyperaware, until recently, about the kind of things that just make me paranoid and worried about the slightest. I’m trying to insert int...

The morning back from Christmas break, in spite of all the whining and general malaise not having a schedule can bring, is always a little heartbreaking for me. I get something from my oldest’s excitement about rejoining her friends at school, and my littlest’s joy in play—they’re clearly not worried about the passage of time. But I am. In a way, I consider too closely the passage of time, mark its moments and wonder, when next? What next? Why not just be in the moment completely and touch what God is handing me now? I know what you’re thinking: there are many reasons why. Daily any one of us gets caught up in the hustle and bustle of what we perceive as life. You’re right.  My point, though, is that when we pause for any holiday—that actual making time for time—we realize we are, many of us, creatures of habit and control, unable to be still until given the opportunity to understand the richness of stillness.  I found this year stillness to be more valuable than any p...

I love the strong imagery of Isaiah—the parched land will be glad (35:1). Everything revolves around what was depleted becoming bloom, glory, rejoicing, shouting for joy. being able to see God, to be strengthened even in weakness. To go from being lame to leaping; from being blind to seeing; from being deaf to hearing—to experience life in its fullness is what Isaiah describes. All the images are wonderful, but the “Way” (35:8) is one which makes it into modern Christianity poorly translated in the cultural and spiritual sense. It’s a way of redemption—the remade self, just as Isaiah describes. He says on this road, “Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away” (35:10). This meant something different to the original audience, but for us, we can only come to a modern understanding with the original humility intended. Which is to say—not that we have picked the right road, or have the best GPS for that journey, but that we are more vulnerable and powerful s...

I find myself two months since my last post, caught up in the usual busyness of life. I thank God that most of this, while challenging, has been rewarding: watching my students grow in knowledge and understanding; watching my beautiful daughters show me how lucky I am to know little souls; grappling with everyday problems. I also struggle with the kinds of problems that feel like they can’t be solved, or won’t be, at least, for a long time. God throws quite a few of those at me, alongside graces. Always graces, snuck in as part of the package strange and foreboding, even.  Throughout my life I have found on my proverbial doorstep so many with deeply broken selves and struggles, and in recent times I have found my own, too—struggles that test the core of what I believe, in my soul, to be the right way to live in this world as we look toward the next: to be merciful, even in the face of mercilessness. Thanksgiving is upon us, and mercilessness is on the rise; my prayer is that we see...

Depression and suffering look like a lot of things—so different for each sufferer. It’s being pulled into the past, into regrets that are anchored in, almost always, someone else’s wrongful action, someone’s deeply hurting words, something that branded young and fast— and this pain has stuck deeply. And everyday we walk around surrounded by people who suffer—and some so much more than others. What of the mother grappling with inexplicable daily darkness that she cannot explain, for fear of being misunderstood, for fear of platitudes sending her deeper into despair? Or the father grappling with an abusive childhood, so solidly marked on his soul that he near daily has to deal with old wounds opening when someone provokes in the same way his authority figures had? Or the young woman grappling with sexual abuse at the hands of what should have been a trusted family member—what of her daily open wound? Or those who experience trauma—exile, earthquake, hurricane, regime, the swiping of ...