Today, I’m in Wilmette, IL. Where we gathered with family and friends to remember Robert Boehm, who died too young on September 13. I stand alongside Rabbi Andy Bossov. We cry and laugh and tell stories. Reminded about the fragility…
This past week, I watched real-time TV images of devastation. Houses and businesses and lives and dreams, decimated. All the while, in awe of the absolute power and unpredictability of nature. And it hits me that we are, every single…
It is blueberry pancake Sunday. In the kitchen, the young mother works under a deadline and a promise; today before church, blueberry pancakes for her two sons, their favorite breakfast in the whole wide world. The two boys, aged 5 and 7, are…
Today, I’m in New Mexico, in rare air, one and a half miles higher than my garden on Vashon Island. This morning I preached at United Church of Angel Fire. Our text is from John’s Gospel. Our topic is bread…
A father knocks on his son’s bedroom door. "Jaime," he says, "wake up!" "I don’t want to get up, Papa," Jaime answers. “You need to get up,” his father shouts, "you have to go to school." “I don’t want to…
I am claustrophobic. I am a parent. So, watching the rescue of the boys from the Tham Luang cave, in what was called an “impossible mission,” tugged at every corner of my heart. But this is a very, very good…
The Sunday-school teacher asked her 10-year-old students if they would be willing to give $1,000,000 to missionary work for children and families in need. "Yes," they all screamed in unison. "Very good. Would you give $1000?" "Yes!" "Good. Would you give $1?" The class responded, "Yes," except…
Everyone has a sanctuary. If only in their mind. That space (or place) where we feel grounded, or at home in our own skin. Where there is nothing to prove and no one to impress. For me it is my…
Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. I know it's true for me. This week, a story from poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four…
A little boy was having nightmares. The kind that require a momma's reassurance. (Dads, from my own experience, are typically not wired for nightmare duty.) So, to his momma’s room the boy went, "Momma, momma, I'm having nightmares." "Its okay honey," she told him, "here's what I want you to do. Go back to your…
