There’s no good time to lose a church building to fire, but the middle of a global pandemic seems like an especially awful time to members of Middle Collegiate Church in New York. “When you get to the block and…
Carpe Diem: Seize the day before it’s too late
As is my custom, I poured my first cup of coffee and sat down in my favorite chair to check my emails and my friends’ activities on Facebook and Instagram before settling in with the morning news. To my shock,…
In the first year of grief, walk the perimeter
In the counseling setting, I often tell my clients it takes a year to get a sense of the loss we have experienced. I compare it to a person who has purchased a piece of land and walked out the…
COVID took my Mom but did not have the final word
COVID-19 thinks it took another victim tonight, Dec. 14, 2020. There will be a death listed in the Bell County, Texas, newspaper, with the State of Texas, and other databases. For my family and me, that death is not just…
A chaplain’s reflection on tears
We who care for souls, traffic in tears. We covenant with the crying, we wait with those who weep. Sometimes we have the joy of sharing “happy” tears — the joining of two in marriage, a newborn baby has come into…
Are you suffering from Pastor Separation Syndrome?
Julie Schaaf said she immediately identified with the term “pastor separation syndrome” when she first heard it recently. The concept refers to the loneliness, frustration and grief some clergy have endured after months of pandemic-induced physical separation from their congregations….
The thing with feathers
I put up my 4-foot Christmas tree a few days ago. It took about 15 minutes from box to display. I slid one skinny pole into the other, draped two or three boxes of ornaments over the stiff branches and…
Holidays 2020 may evoke a darker shade of grief and isolation, panelists say
The COVID-19 pandemic has imbued grieving and isolation with deeper, darker shades during the 2020 holiday season, a panel of experts said during a Dec. 3 webinar hosted by Baptist News Global. The pain of suffering loss or, for LGBTQ…
If your heart is grieving this season
If your heart is sitting in a place of deep lament and grief this holiday season, you are not alone. No human on the planet has been a stranger to grief or hardship this year. How it has affected each…
Four stones to support your grief this holiday season
One rainy Washington night in February 1862, Abraham Lincoln groaned in deep grief. Yes, there were the mounting casualties in the War Between the States, but closer to home, Willie, his 11-year old son, had died of typhoid fever despite…
Getting into the holiday spirit is hard this year
Along with the election next week, I cannot ignore the fact that the darkest, loneliest period of the year begins Sunday with the end of Daylight Savings Time. Before my husband’s death in April 2009, I never paid much attention…
In an unending pandemic, grief isn’t doubt, it’s true faith
Early in my pastoral career, I once met a woman who had recently lost a child during pregnancy due to a serious car accident. In the midst of her quiet witness to the sudden death of her unborn child, I…