Credit: picture taken from “Love Poems From God” translated and compiled by Daniel Ladinsky. I can’t shake this poem from Meister Eckhart. How many of our coloring books depict a clucking “tsk tsk” tongue, below beady eyes that can’t hide their disappointment? How many pages are scribbled with the red of hatred or vengeance or … Continue reading How Do You Draw God?
It's irritating. A calling will sound like the beep-beep beep-beep you faintly hear in your sleep-drowsied dreams. At first you will be dimly aware of its alarming persistence, until slowly, slowly, maybe then with a start you’ll curse the break of day. That is to say, it’s unpleasant, a calling, like a fly, buzzing around … Continue reading You Ask Me What A Calling Feels Like
For Mike The world has spun for a whole year without you. It’s relentless, the way life keeps going on and on and on, not stopping for a breath, a death, a good cry, a moment of reflection, a goodbye before it is too late. And on this day - one year later - I … Continue reading On the Anniversary of Unexpected Death (or, Grief Complicated)
A Reflection on Mark 2:1-12 Jesus Heals a Paralysed Man – vie de Jesus mafa Jesus, you looked with compassion on the men who disassembled the roof of your home to bring their paralyzed friend before you. They tore through the structure that kept you protected from the rain, sheltered from the hot sun. The … Continue reading On Disassembling Jesus’ House
I woke this morning before dawn and went outside into the chilly almost-spring air. As I watched the sky fade from black to that early morning blue, stars twinkling out one by one, all at once I was struck by the unusual quiet of the moment. Birds were chirping, my wind chime was singing a … Continue reading A Moment of Clarity in the Midst of Crisis
A Reflection on Luke 24 They said it was an “idle tale”. The women rushed into the house with wide eyes and fierce conviction, proclaiming that Jesus’ tomb was empty, that angels greeted them, that Jesus is risen. And the men brushed aside the women’s word like you’d brush away a delicate butterfly. An "idle … Continue reading Before Peter Spoke, Women Preached
Abba Father, like my girl quietly playing with her toys while I sit nearby book in my lap, and she looks up at me, eyes alight with wonder, crying, "Look, mama!" wanting me to see the spectacular discovery before her of how colors of clay blend in her kneading hands - and I smile and … Continue reading I Have Calmed and Quieted My Soul (Psalm 131)
I don't often share posts about my thoughts on Scripture, but Mary of Bethany has captured my imagination this week and I felt compelled to share her story. I am intrigued by the outrageous display of affection she lavished upon Jesus in John 12:1-8. This is an easy story to gloss over, to write-off as … Continue reading Love Unbound: A Glimpse into Mary of Bethany
I snap at my husband in a moment of frustration because the house is in utter chaos: the dog just peed on the carpet and when I let him outside he escaped through the gate that my husband left open, so I had to chase the dog in the cold rain barefoot. When I get … Continue reading More Than A Feeling
Home is where the heart is, so the saying goes. And that is true, though maybe not true enough. Because home is not just the place where your heart longs to be. Home is where your heart is whole - wholly loved, wholly known. I was having a particularly exhausting day, after an especially challenging … Continue reading Homecoming
Rev. Laura Johnson 