I wanted so badly to break free and let loose—but I just couldn't. I was stuck in my own false ideas of the congregation's expectations of me. Luckily, there’s still time.

Failing to use a microphone is a form of exclusion. “When I’m excluded, I feel weary, frustrated, and invisible."

Come one, come all! Come with your missing pieces and your extra screws Come with your hard edges and your soft spots Come with your bowed heads and upright spines Come all you flamboyant and drab verbose and quiet fidgeting and lethargic All you with large vision and tender hearts All you with...

Six weeks into the church year, I have realized that I am the minister of a church where things usually go wrong. This morning the copy machine jams repeatedly. The bulletin describing the order of worship has been copied with the second page first and also upside down....

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

Dear great lathe of heaven, O foundry of souls, You churning, burning cosmos which has wrought me on the infinite loom of your celestial body. Spinning stars and indifferent stones: hear my prayer. Do not curse me to perish with all my dreams fulfilled....

In the midst of the whirling day, In the hectic rush to be doing, In the frantic pace of life, Pause here for a moment. Catch your breath; Relax your body; Loosen your grip on life....

Each moment of our living brings us closer to our dying. Young or old, the knowledge of life’s end is with us, growing more real, more familiar through the experiences of time and of loss. Yet what is to keep us from frittering away what time is left to us, Making it almost a matter of...

I have learned some things about life from canoes. I’m not saying I know how to paddle. I have been in canoes twice, and both have been learning experiences. The second time was fun. The first time, a friend and I decided to take one out on a lake. We slid the canoe into the water. She hopped in.

When I was a child, I would stand and gaze at the starry firmament and contemplate infinity. As I stood there, the boundary that is time dissolved; I expanded my Spirit to fill the boundary that is space. My being stilled and all fear, anxiety, and anguish disappeared....

A voice screeched gate assignments through a nerve-jangling public address system. Even if the announcements had been in English, I doubt that I’d have been able to make sense of them. But whatever was being broadcast to the cavernous waiting area of the Moscow airport prompted mobs of people to...