We are an angry and beautiful people.

The power to choose is the power of life in the midst of brokenness.

Shame seems to be a bestselling product pumped out of all these crushing systems.

I learned that love and support can be expressed in many different ways by different people.

I am afraid and exhausted from the constant fear. I don’t know who to trust for information about the virus.

Uncertain as the world feels right now, love will bear whatever lies ahead.

It’s important to honor the footprint others leave on our heart.

Here I am, God, here I am. Here I am with the dishes in the sink, the dust on the shelves, the skin on my hands which is drying out and starting to crack. My appetite has gone, without any other bodies to remind my body of itself. I can pray for salvation but my bones know this is all there is....

“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”...

A lot of us feel like our lives should have come with instructions. Or maybe they did, but we lost the only copy a long time ago.

Surround yourself with skillful teachers. Let them teach you, but don't let them do it for you. That learning is yours to do.

Every year, I tell the congregation not to worry about mistakes because there aren’t any; there is only us, telling an old story about love getting born into this aching world.

The crisis was an opportunity to learn to be fully me and love it, inner turmoil and all. I learned that strength comes from authenticity, never from perfection.

Knit six purl six sets of two rows four rows six rows up to twelve, patterns, repeating, steady, soothingly same. This is not what life is like. Life is like picking up a tousled hunk of yarn pulled out of the basket by an impatient child looking for a string too many times. You find an end. You...

As a hospital chaplain, I often listen to painful stories. We call it compassionate presence, but I may be crying inside. When words fail, I pray and sing.

[S]piritual and meditative practices are not meant to erase pain. That's a symptom of our pain-avoidant culture, and not an accurate portrayal of the practices themselves. It's a misuse of so many beautiful teachings to force them into roles they were never meant to play....

America has not yet faced our history of slavery, nor the malicious colonization and oppression of the Indigenous peoples.

We are broken, O God. We are broken. We gather in vigil again to mourn the death of school children and school teachers. Death and violence are the reasons that draw us together in sorrow, in anger, in anxious grief and loss....

What had to die was my shame: my belief that I was not worthy of such love. I discovered a greater love within myself as a creation of God, worthy of these gifts.

In the days ahead, many of us will gather with family and friends, people with whom we may have long and complicated relationships. It helps to prepare. Let us enter into the spirit of prayer or meditation. Dear Spirit, Great Mystery that has blessed us with Life, help us to feel grateful....