During my morning walk today, I must have passed at least half a dozen church buildings, each one with its own sign facing the road. Most of these were the backlit type with replaceable plexiglass letters that could be rearranged to spell out a new message each week. It was interesting to read each sign…
My life can get pretty over-scheduled. From the moment I wake up until late in the evening, many days it seems that there’s no real end to my personal work treadmill. If I’m lucky, there are at least pauses along the way for me to catch my breath. This has become the new normal. Many…
I visited a friend’s synagogue this Saturday. She was delivering the Jewish equivalent of a sermon as part of the service that morning, and she invited me to attend. I’m glad I did. I had never participated in a Jewish religious service before, and it was an eye-opening experience for me as a Christian to…
This Sunday at Capitol Hill Friends, we looked at Luke 10:1-24, the story of when Jesus sends out 72 of his disciples to go ahead of him into Samaria and share the good news: The kingdom of God has come near to you. Jesus sends his followers out in utter vulnerability. He instructs them to…
I recently read a post by Suzannah Paul, in which she reflects on her own experience of living in a culture of isolation. She describes the present era as one in which our common experience is intense loneliness, where genuine community seems always out of reach. Of course, most of us have become quite adept…
By the end of my first semester in college, I was convinced that learning a foreign language was out of my reach. Though I had done alright in high school, my first college-level Spanish course knocked me flat. It got so bad, in fact, that I ended up taking it pass/fail, and I barely squeaked…
Not too long after becoming a Quaker, I remember hearing an inspiring story. I was told that there was once a Friends Meeting that had at once been a vibrant community. The meetinghouse was built to hold several hundred people, and at some point – perhaps a hundred years ago – it had been filled…