Befriending Desire

Befriending Desire

It seems inevitable that part of maturing and growing into adulthood is a process of coming to terms with our earnest desires. You could rightly say that children and adolescents are wanting, needing, longing beings. Just take a three-year-old through the checkout counter at the grocery! As we enter young adulthood, we begin to learn that some of our larger desires and needs will require that we forgo certain immediate desires and needs. In other words, we learn to moderate or deny some desires in the short run, which is evidence of growing maturity.

The Present Is the Gift

The Present Is the Gift

Because here’s the thing. This present moment, the breath I’m taking now, is the only thing that’s real. While I still feel the effects of the past, the past itself is, well, past. And while I anticipate the future with a mix of hope and doubt, the future itself is unknowable. The only place I can know and be known, the only place I can live rooted in love, the only place I can experience God, is in this very messy moment. Rooted in the reality that there is enough, right here, right now. Me in God. God in me. In the now, there is enough.

(IN) Darkness

(IN) Darkness

Last Friday, my mom called 911. She was having trouble breathing, much more trouble than usual. She’s 80, and she has COPD. Her already weak lungs were compromised by viral pneumonia. She is recovering slowly, feeling the limitations of her body. We are in a new season, a season I would never choose for her, a season of loss. Loss of independence. Loss of control. Loss of even breath. We are bumping around in the dark. Praying and feeling our way through. Trusting we will find God present with us, even as God is present (IN) us. Maybe, like me, you’re feeling your way through a dark space in life. If so, I offer you (and me) some words from rooted (IN).

Life Is in the Roots (or how I began writing rooted IN)

Life Is in the Roots (or how I began writing rooted IN)

This place of connection is the place where truth and wisdom break in.  So I lifted a question.  Why is connection so important to you, God? Connection with you, with ourselves, with others? The response came—every point of connection is a connection with him. God in us.  God in others.  God in everything he’s made.  Not in a pantheistic, the tree is God, kind of way.  But in a sacramental, seeing and touching the holy, kind of way. 

Frozen Peas and a Fragile Ego

Frozen Peas and a Fragile Ego

Crazy, the things we believe about ourselves, about others, about who we’re supposed to be. And Holy Spirit comes to remind. You, me, we are fully loved. Fully held. And I can show up in life fully me. Saggy eyelids. Bruised eyelids. Ever-so-slightly lifted eyelids. This place of showing up as is, this is the place of grace. The place we begin to live more rooted in love for God and for ourselves. Less tangled up in judgment. More tangled up in the love of God.

A Heartbeat Away: Reflections on a trip to India

A Heartbeat Away: Reflections on a trip to India

I think that maybe Jesus knew, if we’d just break some bread together, have a little wine, and share our stories, the distance between us, all the things that divide, would begin to shrink. That we’d discover our shared humanity and fall a little in love with one another. Not in a mushy Hallmark movie kind of way. But in a heart to heart, connected kind of way that would bind us together in love. Maybe this is the point of communion, a union shared in Christ, in love, that spans continents and political parties and our deep desire to be right about pretty much everything we believe.