by Mary Button Lately I’ve been meditating on 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” This verse comes at the end of one of the […]
by Jeanette Bidne Jeanette June Bidne. That has been my name since birth. Yet, after marriage I was repeatedly asked, “So, what was your maiden name?” I smile and repeat the exact words, Jeanette June Bidne. My name hasn’t changed. Sometimes I wonder if people have assumptions about me when I share those exact words […]
by Collette Broady Grund Over the last year, I have spent a lot of time with groups and individuals who are processing grief. It’s an unfolding vocation as I continue to process and integrate the sudden death of my husband in June 2019. Sharing what I have learned and opening space for others to do […]
by Ralen M. Robinson “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” -Galatians 3:28 The words begin to flow, but before my tongue can caress the vowel and my mouth can shape the word, I am spoken over from […]
by Valora K Starr Everything. That’s what The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have told us today as we honor his life and reflect on his message. Growing up, I witnessed my parents, whose eyes were glued to watching television (black and white then), read newspaper articles and attend community rallies during the […]
by Susan Schneider When my friend Robin was getting divorced she found herself drawn (pun intended) to sketching a Depression-era photograph of a man with a plow. She said there was something about working with that photo by Dorthea Lange that comforted her—something about the farmer’s strength in pushing forward into the future despite bleak […]
by Jeanette Bidne “Just because you disappointed someone does not mean you did something wrong.” I have reminded myself of the truth in this statement several times in the last couple of years. I do not recall exactly who shared it with me, but I do recall how I felt when I heard it. I remember […]
by Becca Ehrlich Trigger warning: infant loss, spiritual abuse A few years ago, I went on a 3-week retreat to Costa Rica to appear on a TV show called Lost Resort. On the retreat, we had group activities and one-on-one sessions with leaders of the retreat called “healers.” I had gone on this retreat to […]
by Susan Schneider When the list of high school basketball players who made the varsity team was posted, Michael’s name was not on it. Instead, the promising sophomore was encouraged to join the junior varsity team. The fifteen-year-old went home and cried. He threatened to quit the sport altogether, but his mother encouraged him to […]
by Sarah Carson Lately, I’ve been obsessed with the first few lines of Mary Oliver’s famous poem “Wild Geese”: “You do not have to be good,” the poem begins. You don’t have to walk through the desert on your knees, repenting. All you have to do, Oliver says, is “let the soft animal of your […]