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A word about winter blues
Note: This article discusses suicide and depression Suicide is a delicate and complicated subject. As I’ve walked with people enduring the brutal grief process in the wake of such loss, I’ve had few words to offer. As I’ve reflected on my own relationships with people who’ve taken their lives, I have only questions. The primary one being, “Is there something I could have done?” This past holiday season, I found myself being…
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The world’s most low-key Advent group
In the middle of the pandemic darkness of the fall of 2020, when church gatherings were fraught, a small idea ignited. I sent an email to people I knew, inviting them to meet online each Sunday in December for what I called, “The World’s Most Low-Key Advent Group.” A grand name for a small gathering.…
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Sacred disruption
I don’t like the dark. If I can’t avoid walking into a dark room, I will use my phone’s glowing screen to break up the night until I reach the light switch. What is it about darkness that I find so disconcerting? Perhaps it’s the uncertainty, the unknowability of what lies unseen. My brain tells…
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Five spiritual practices for waiting in darkness
1 Night sky meditation Go to a quiet spot, under the night sky. Pray with Psalm 8. (“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”) Ponder: How am…
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Waiting in the uterverse
On every one of my previous visits to the fertility clinic, the waiting room was full. Women of different ages, ethnicities and income brackets would take their seats in fertility limbo. Some would sit on their own, while others sat with partners who held their hands and brought them water or coffee until they were…
