A weekend in our nation’s capital has left me wondering about our national identity. It s a grim place, Washington D.C. It’s a city filled with people from everywhere, which lends it a sense of being absolutely nowhere at all. Ask people on the street for directions and you might get a hit by inquiry number four. (“Excuse me, which way is the White House?” “Oh. Ummm. I’m not from around here.”)

The big draws in D.C. are things made of stone, most of it white marble. The buildings are massive and undoubtedly impressive: the Library of Congress, the Senate, The Auxiliary Office of Support Staff. Only the Red Cross looks shabby and utilitarian, stripped bare and ready for service. … {read more…}

The Scripture for Day One

When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty

Jeremiah 15:16

Thoughts on the Story:

Lessons in Being a Prophet
Lesson One: Mood Swings

There Jeremiah is fuming at God. When God’s message first burrowed its way like a spinning dart into the prophet’s heart, he was glad. What revelation! What a privilege! What a feast!

Later, when colleagues misunderstood and friends grew angry….later, ignored and the subject of much anger, the prophet complains. It’s … {read more…}

As Ramadan begins, Muslims around the world will fast and prayer, make confession and repentance. Ramadan celebrates, among other things, the giving of the word. For the People of the Book, it is a time to express reverence and thanksgiving.

I have not expressed thanksgiving for the book of my people for a long time. Somewhere along the line my holy text got turned into a rule book. It lost its lore, it wonder and its intrigue. I don’t want it to be a rule book. I want it to be…..my grandmother’s scrapbook–full of notes, half-formed poems, handwritten recipes, ticket stub, yellowing newspaper clipping, a corsage from a ball with a date unknown, the dried wing of a butterfly.

So, I … {read more…}

This was read as a prayer at the new writers group I’ve just begun attending. I thought it was intriguing.

What to Remember When Waking
by David Whyte

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not … {read more…}