Blog
All Our Ikea Friends Are Gone
We moved to the Dallas suburbs a decade ago when the sprawling metroplex boasted a single Ikea. The Swedish-based super retailer known for cheap furniture, white curtain panels and frozen meatballs sat squat and sprawling at the corner of two major toll roads only...
Book Review: Baptized in the Water
In spiritual direction we talk about how tears are holy because they signify that which is beyond words. Tears are a sign that the spirit of God is near to our hearts, that something is holy and sacred. This Easter Sunday was a particularly precious one as my oldest...
New Favorite Childrens Books on Faith
I just started teaching kindergarten through second grade Sunday school, a longtime dream. It made me realize it’s been a while since I’ve done a roundup of children’s books to form young faith. There are several really exciting and creative titles out since my last...
Book Review: Bare Tree and Little Wind
As a progressive Christian parent, I struggle to find Lent and Easter books that can manage a story that is complex and nuanced in both a developmentally and theologically appropriate way. The story of death and resurrection needs to be handled in an developmentally...
Interview with author Heidi Haverkamp
I had long appreciated Rev. Heidi Haverkamp’s writing at the Christian Century but fell in love with her perspective on faith when she launched her newsletter Part Time Hermit. There was something about her reflections that appealed to my bookish, pastoral...
Book Review: Twas the Season of Advent
The older my children get the deeper we’ve tried to cultivate intentional practices around Advent. It’s a beautiful season to cultivate the Christian practice of waiting. Waiting on God, waiting on love’s light to enter in. This season grows more and more important as...
Spiritual Direction: An Update & Announcement
In the spring of 2020 I began the three year training process to receive my certification in Spiritual Direction through Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. I wanted to add some tools to my tool bag that would deepen my practice of...
When a Nap Won’t Fix It
Early in congregational ministry a dear friend and colleague had the chance to see the great preacher and teacher Fred Craddock speak. When asked about clergy fatigue by an audience member he responded “if you are tired in ministry, take a nap.” As we slogged our way...
Interview with Author and Activist Lindsey Krinks
Sometimes there’s a book that comes along and hits all your buttons as a reader, that was the case for me when I picked up Lindsey Krinks’s Praying with Our Feet: Pursuing Justice and Healing on the Streets. In the vein of Fr. Gregory Boyle’s Barking to the Choir,...
