Some stories are like restorative prayers. They invite (no, they require) retelling, for the healing of our spirit and our soul.In 1942, the Nazis were actively and forcefully rounding up Jews in France. In the picturesque farming village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (in southern France), Reformed…
On my walk this morning, I stop at the fence. My congregation, the sheep, are reclining contentedly in the grass. “Well,” their look asked me. “Do you have a story this week or not?”“It’s an old story,” I tell them.…
This week I received email from readers about their illness from covid. And email about the death of loved ones, from covid. Email from people unsettled, tired and scared, looking for words. “Are we going to be okay? How do…
Change messes with us. I wish it weren’t so.You know, messes with the tidy (manageable and predictable) script we tote for mental security. About the way life should be.“Now, we need to think outside the box,” someone posted.“What box?” another…
In the living room, Christmas is still in the air. Yes, the Christmas tree is still up, until the 12th day of Christmas, January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. I’m content to live this way until Lent. But something tells me that I…
We live in a world that needs healing, from gentle hands of grace.Writer Kim Rosen visited a safe house in Kenya for young Masai women who had run away from home to escape genital mutilation. The girls liked to sing, and asked Rosen if she…
This week a news story stopped me in my tracks.(Which is hardly abnormal these days.)But this story made me pay attention, inviting questions about what really matters. Let’s be honest, in today’s din, that’s not easy to do. After 30…
Newborn babies dressed in red cardigan sweaters and sneakers. The news photograph on my screen makes me smile big. And I can tell you this; whatever is weighing me down can wait. This keeps my hope alive.Photos can be cathartic.…
We are, every one of us, so beautifully fragile.It just doesn’t always feel that way does it? You know, the beautiful part.Instead, we feel on edge or unglued. And we recoil, apologize, or feel at the mercy of.Because we begin…
Sometimes we need stories more than food to stay alive. They remind us what really matters and allow us to see with our heart. Stories save us.Like the story about how Stephanie Disney (audiologist at the Commission for Children with…
