Essay

(This post originally appeared at http://www.iamareconciler.org/dear-church-refuse-to-be-in-denial/ -- thanks to Melissa for her permissino to repost this important piece here at the Twelve.)Dear Church, I write to you to admit that I am a recovering racist, working to overcome the lies…

On Sunday night, June 7, the little St. James Anglican Church in rural Parham, Ontario, burned to the ground. Well, the entrance still stood, with its bright blue door. The cause of the fire was arson, but the reason it…

I never did put a fish sticker on the back of my car. Many years ago, I considered it for a while -- a discreet little fish. Nothing attention-grabbing. Now I'm glad I didn't. What was my intention? Was I…

In 2009-10 we lived in the Netherlands. The Dutch do lots of things better than we do, including bike paths, reclaiming land from the sea, bread, and public transportation. There are things the United States does better than the Netherlands.…

Spontaneity is not one of my gifts. My family might actually think that’s a significant understatement. A few years ago when I chose the word “mindful” as my word of the year, my mother was a little disgusted. She actually…

Sometimes I have a hard time knowing how to attend to the largest crisis before me because of any number of tiny crises holding my hand, whispering in my ear, and pulling at my heart’s attention. When the world so…

In the summer of 1964, I had turned nine years old. My mom was sick and dying, and my dad was pastor of First Reformed Church in a distant Chicago suburb. The church was expanding, adding an educational wing and…

One of my summer jobs in college was researching and compiling hymn stories – the history of composers, authors, tunes, and circumstances, for Hymnary.org. I love a good hymn story. I love the idea that the songs we sing today…

Be nice. Play nice. Nice people. Nice time. “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Nice clothes. Nice company. How about, “where’s a nice pencil I can use to stab my eye out?” I…

For the past fifteen years I have enjoyed the good fortune of living on Lake Michigan’s eastern shore, in the home where my children formed some of their happiest memories decades ago visiting their grandpa and grandma. Now it is…