“Can’t we just agree to disagree?” This has been a common thread lately on social media and among conversations with people I know. Certainly, we can. I like vanilla, and you prefer chocolate ice cream. I cheer for my alma…
My slow slide into addiction
I started drinking after my wife died in 2017. It wasn’t a plunge to drown my sorrows, exactly. More of a slow slide. The widower buddies who helped me get through that brutal first year of loss met at a…
What your faith community needs to know for Suicide Awareness Month
This article discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. If you are in crisis, call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You know someone, even if you don’t know it. You work with someone. Go to school with someone….
Preaching to pain
One of the sayings attributed to Buddha and others is, “Life is suffering.” Jesus put his own spin on that universal truth when he asserted, “It rains on the just and the unjust.” No one escapes this life without having…
Dispatches from a Black trauma surgeon
Within these four walls I have wrecked the lives of far too many Black mothers. The family room is a windowless, white-walled cell in the hospital, with hazy fluorescent lighting, hard-bottomed plastic chairs, and a worn end table with a…
What will you do with your Daniel scar?
Today, I did something I’ve never done before at a funeral. Something so ill-advised that pastoral care professors reading this likely will flinch on hearing it. Something that’s the wrong thing except when it is suddenly very necessary. I told…
The unrecognized grief of adoption
I’ve been working at an affordable senior living complex for almost a year. The role includes serving as pastor of the church that meets on site as well as creating initiatives to nurture spiritual wellness within the community and the…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Brian McLaren
Brian McLaren has been one of the most important voices in American Christianity for a quarter-century, and his new book, After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart, is a hard and beautiful and necessary book about how…
The church could increase resilience in survivors
Resilience is the ability to bounce back or rebound from adversity. We see this in how trees bend in the wind, how shorelines adapt to change or how a forest recovers from a wildfire. We also see resilience in humans…