When we use our imaginations, our grief and loss have the potential to become the silent, fertile seedbed for redemptive, life-giving deeds.
‘Anticipatory mourning’: America’s youth on death, guns and dissent
We’ve ritualized death away from the young in this culture, in funeral homes and hospice facilities, but it has overtaken them with a vengeance in what were once safe spaces for learning.
Learning from ‘Coco’: Challenges and opportunities
In my corner of the world, people continue to be interested in the movie Coco, especially after its nomination for an Oscar in the category of best animated feature film. Personally, I started to think about this movie again due to my mother’s recent passing.
The apple does not fall far from the tree: Women’s rights, my mother and me
La versión en español está disponible aquí. Last week my mother died unexpectedly. She was 86 years old, and had struggled with Alzheimer/dementia for the last 12 years. This sickness advances slowly and gradually, and little by little family and…
Ashes to ashes: Remembering where we came from
On the evening of January 18, 2005, the First Baptist Church of Jamaica Plain, Mass., burned to the ground. The building was one of the oldest in town, with a beautiful Hook organ, hand-carved wooden pews, and a steeple tall…
No one warned me that ministry would make a mortician out of me
I want to build the casket and dig the hole. We usually hire those jobs out, but I want to do it myself. Remember the scene in Harry Potter where Harry buries Dobby, but refuses to use magic? Something about…
Are evangelical churches abandoning the working class?
As cycles of unemployment, poverty and death have set in on many working class communities across America, are churches overlooking their responsibilities to help alleviate the pain and suffering of plighted working class families?
What Prince did before he died — and 5 reasons it matters
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from the radio. It was so shocking that I wanted to pull the car to the side of the road to take it all in. This was not the news that Prince, the…
Engaging Easter’s light after Holy Week’s darkness
You know what they say on Easter afternoon in my line of work: “Christ is risen; the pastor is dead.” It sounds funny and perhaps it was, 19 years ago when I was first ordained. It might be age that…