“We are the same person,” is the thing I find myself saying when I feel a particular affinity to someone. The other day my friend confessed that when she got really overwhelmed at work, she would start researching #vanlife and…

Last week I was gifted the library of a local, retired pastor. Rather than donate the books to a bookstore, he wanted them to go to a young pastor he could meet personally. I was touched that he and his…

Several months ago, during Epiphany and Lent, I invited members of my congregation to join me in memorizing Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). We engaged it as a spiritual practice, the goal being to hide God’s word in…

Sometimes I tell people that if I ever became a pastor (or in the nomenclature of the denomination I grew up in: preacher), I’d get up in front every Sunday and say, “It’s complicated.” Then I’d give the blessing and…

Temple of Apollo, Corinth, with temple of Aphrodite on the acropolis behind. Thanks to Laura de Jong for filling in for me last time. I was on a tour of Greece with some long-time friends, and with others newly made.…

A number of months ago, I wrote a reflection on being written into the story, inspired by Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee's dialogue in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers. They had paused mid-mission to wonder "what sort of tale" they…

Perhaps it went largely unnoticed as Americans this past weekend were gearing up for a holiday weekend.  Still, something rather remarkable happened. North Korea test fired some ballistic missiles yet the President of the United States—right next door to North…