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When he slipped his feet into the tub of warm, herb-infused water, he did so almost apologetically. “Thank you,” he said, tentatively, an edge of either shyness or embarrassment in his tone as she summoned a foot to her lap. Derek, 46, was a drifter. He had been drifting most of his life like a…

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. —Luke 2:6,7 The sheer physicality of this picture strikes me this Christmas. The…

[NOTE: If you’re noticing an absence of images in recent posts, it’s because we’re experiencing some technical difficulties uploading images.  Thanks for bearing with us!] This Father’s Day I’ll be preaching to Fairview Presbyterian Church on a text that will be familiar to many of you— from the last chapter of Matthew. (Some of you…

[Note to readers: if you have trouble with potty humor, you probably won’t want to read this.] So there we are at the “Blue Heron Nature Preserve” on a crisp fall afternoon, my kids and I taking in the best of the rustic outdoors that downtown Buckhead Atlanta has to offer. No blue herons in…

This post was supposed to be yesterday’s—apologies, as I’m still rather gradually coming out of a long hibernation due to too many commitments—but as promised, I’m including below a meditation on holy space from saint and sinner Michael, who has bravely shared two of his holiest moments with us. I hope they’ll be as much…

I spend part of Friday morning in the dementia unit at a local assisted living center. (Some mornings getting the kids off to school—barely— I wonder if I belong there.) This past Friday Tom was there as usual, motionless and catatonic, staring somewhere into space. It is rare that he responds to questions now. If…

If you tune in to one of my favorite blogs, Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish, you’ll find an ongoing conversation there about the occasional promise and (more commonly) perils of the generation that follows mine: the “Millennials.” This demographic is of great interest- mainly because one in three Americans under the age of 30 now goes…

The soundtrack to the movie, “The Mission”- about a group of Jesuit missionaries in eighteenth century South America who live and die alongside the indigenous Guarani people, when they are slaughtered and their land forcibly taken by Portuguese colonialists- almost always makes me cry. Its refrains seem to embody a life lived passionately for God,…

This past weekend as I lay sunbathing on a beach in Santa Monica, California, it seemed like everywhere I turned there was somebody beautiful. The tan, toned, athletic bodies were everywhere, which had me wondering whether, after two pregnancies, I really dared peel off that top layer of clothing and bear my own now pale-white…

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  This final victory lap of the book; the last touches on a manuscript that I now a bit bashfully would let other eyes see for the very first time: they were supposed to come with the peaceful satisfaction of hard-won achievement. I had come to the monastery to…
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