But I can promise that I will continue in community and open-hearted love with people of all political persuasions. I will speak my truth, and I will listen well to yours.
Yet, I also wonder whether this place-based holiness isn’t a bit like an analog watch, needing its spring to be wound again and again. Some places are probably so deeply imbued with spiritual energy that their unwinding might take centuries or millennia, the locations of Jesus’ life and death perhaps, or pilgrimage trails like the Camino de Santiago. But other places, like parish churches or summer camp chapels seem to need an ongoing encounter to sustain them or the thin place comes to be clouded and not so thin anymore.
Grief is heavy. It drags one down like a burlap bag of scrap metal over one’s shoulder – it weighs down, heavy, and sharp metal ends – jagged, rusty tear-stained bits poke through the burlap and then the shirt into one’s fleshy back.
Some years ago I realized that when we have loss, we grieve dreams as much as we grieve history. More recently I’ve come to believe that we grieve dreams especially, and perhaps even primarily.
This began what I now call a pilgrimage through loss. These were during the same years that our mourning-avoidant culture heralded “closure” and “moving on” as the hallmarks of healthy grief. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s “stages of grief” adapted from her death and dying work became a dominant narrative. This focus on closure seemed deeply flawed. Plus, it didn’t fit, and, instinctively, it didn’t seem wise or realistic.
“Overweight.” That was the verdict from my iPhone’s BMI index. I had been skinny all my life until now, but that had ended and I had to face the fact that I was headed in a bad direction. At almost 60, “Obese” could be in my future. If I didn’t want to end up like the rest of my family, I had to come to grips with reality.
by George Clifford In college and seminary in the 1970s, I was taught that stasis was theologically superior to dynamism. For example, course content emphasized
by Maria L. Evans O God, whose beloved Son took children into his arms and blessed them: Give us grace to entrust N. to
I was struck especially by these words: “Receive me again into the arms of your mercy, and restore me to the blessed company of your faithful people;
by Sarah Brock Making choices is one of those inevitable bits of living life. We make them every day. Little decisions that are so insignificant