I’ve always hated Halloween. I didn’t like it as a kid. The creepy faces, the scary clowns. It was all too unnerving. That didn’t change when I became an adult. The Halloween after my college graduation, sitting at the desk…
Thoughts on Halloween, saints and souls
In my quiet suburban cul-de-sac in Atlanta, our neighbors are competing with one another to mark Halloween in the oddly incoherent American way that has become our “normal.” We have our Harvest Festival types — friendly looking scarecrows, straw hats,…
Learning the mixed metaphors of grief, a primary color
“Your father has had a stroke. We are on our way to the hospital.” The text message came from my mother, just as I was finishing a worship service at a youth camp in the mountains of Arkansas. The next…
My Coronavirus Summer: Coping with grief and seeking joy
None of us are exempt from significant loss at some point in our lives — loss of loved ones, property, health, income. Losses often pile up on one another, and the world seems to turn upside down overnight. After my…
‘Will it come like this, the moment of my death?’ Living and dying in a COVID-19 world
This global pandemic requires us to confront the possibility of death – not fearfully or obsessively, but with intentionality born of the reality of the present moment, longing for Easter as Gethsemane and Golgotha linger.
We’ve got plenty to be afraid of these days. So why does the Bible tell us not to fear?
The point is not what we fear, but what a life ruled by fear can do to us.
Christianity doesn’t need saving; people do
I have come to realize that Christianity hasn’t, doesn’t and won’t ever need saving. At its best, Christianity is a faith that dies again and again and again for the sake of other people.
Hope, peace, joy and love at Christmas. And sometimes grief and pain
Amid all the smiles and laughter, if you’re grieving this Christmas, it’s OK. Your anguish has a role to play.
You CAN go home again
When we use our imaginations, our grief and loss have the potential to become the silent, fertile seedbed for redemptive, life-giving deeds.