A brief thought or poem for the weekend, friends ... Pamela Greenberg's beautiful translation of the Psalms leaves me speechless. Her version of part of Psalm 27 lives in my heart these days: Don't give me over to the breath of my fears. For distortions in the name of truth, they breathe out visions of […]

God, we pray for the shattered people of Israel. **Lord, have mercy ... And for the innocent civilians in Palestine. Lord, have mercy ... May the hostages be freed safe and sound. Lord, have mercy ... May the grief-stricken and traumatized be allowed their grief and offered comfort in the midst of the unimaginable. Lord, […]

I love listening to broken people talk about God. There is no moralizing, no pontificating, no fake humility about how they are just so blessed. Just. So. Blessed. Give me a good alcoholic who has to try every day to stay on the wagon, give me someone who has had their heart broken once or […]

I have noticed in my decades as a pastor that more people than not have a troubled relationship with God. Rather than experiencing God as love and loving, we experience God as judgmental and judging. This dramatically impacts how we live, whether we realize it or not. A couple quotes got me thinking about this. […]

Psychologist Carl Jung said : "Where your fear is, there is your task." I am not sure what Jung meant by this. Nonetheless, it has impacted me as I have battled fear lately. Here's how: First, it has caused me to get very specific about the details of my fear. Though it is a strange […]

"To struggle used to be to grab with both hands and shake and twist and turn and push and shove and not give in but wrest an answer from it all as Jacob did a blessing. But there is another way to struggle with an issue, a question -- Simply to jump off into the […]