Connecting Jesus’ Wisdom on the Righteous with His Jewish Heritage
Last week, a member of this year’s Beloved in the Desert cohort contemplated Psalm 37 in St. Philip’s Daily Bread reflection series. (I’ve shared one of my prior Daily Bread postings here before.) Maddie is converting to Judaism and connected the psalm with the Jewish...
Pondering the Difference between Adulate and Emulate
Last week in our antiracism discussion group (which is still going strong almost two years in), one discussion thread focused on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. While not of a different race, Samaritans were still seen as outsiders by the Jews in Jesus’ time....
Welcoming an Unexpected Gift on a Friday Afternoon
Last Friday I received an unexpected gift in the form of a phone call from Henry that he’d locked his keys in the car down in Nogales, an hour and a half away. The story actually begins more than two years ago, when I visited a dear friend in Colorado and lost a...
Rethinking My Perspective on the Hummingbird and Power
One day last week, I looked out the back door of our house and saw a bright green hummingbird hovering and darting around the pair of pots filled with columnar cacti pictured above. Since the cacti aren’t flowering, I couldn’t figure out what the hummingbird was doing...
Holding Space for Busy Bees and Students
This past week was very full for me. In addition to work with several editing and coaching clients, spiritual guidance sessions, and retreat leadership planning, I participated in multiple sessions of the first week of this year’s Hesychia School of Spiritual...
Reflection and Commitment on a Recent Retreat
I spent most of this past week in northern Arizona on a personal retreat. It’s important to practice what I preach, and over the years I’ve recommended to many people that they take retreat time. I also recognize that with a full and varied work plate as a...
Revising My Comment about Charitable Giving in Europe
I’ve claimed here before that I am open to learning new things and today I’m going to share an example of that. Two weeks ago, I wrote about connecting charity and capitalism and included a statement that an American who had lived overseas told me probably a dozen...
Being Content Right Where We Are
Last week, I received an email “out of the blue,” inviting me to apply for a position at a local resort that the person described as “full time spiritual direction.” My initial response was, “This is exactly the kind of job I’ve always dreamed of doing!” While that’s...
Connecting Charity, Poverty, and Capitalism in New Ways
Last weekend our antiracism group started the new year with a new book: We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign. When I read the first chapter, I was reminded of something I learned probably a dozen years ago: charitable giving is very...
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