“This is an example of what we call ‘just-in-time’ inventory.” Maybe these are not the words you think of a new grandmother saying to her first newborn granddaughter, but if you know that both of my parents are CPAs and that there’s only so much a new mom can chit-chat, it makes more sense. I’d had my newborn home for…
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Devotional time! My church does a Lenten devotional each year written by us, for us, and this year we’re thinking about a favorite hymn. I picked Holy Spirit, Ever Dwelling. Ever. Not just sometimes, not just when the time is right, not just when expected, not just when we feel it. The Holy Spirit is EVER dwelling within us and everywhere.…
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I wish someone had told me years and years ago: It is not only OK, it is a gift to possess no authority or expertise whatsoever. Sure, in areas of life in which I am the responsible party, I need authority to carry out my work. And I’ve spent a good chunk of my professional life thinking hard about the…
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On time for writing-- and time for praying
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What does it mean to be a light? How good do I have to be? How shiny?
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Driving on the highways of Texas and New Mexico, the neon crosses and stark billboards would loom in the distance for miles before you could read them: “Jesus Saves.” Or in the street, at a park, or at a public event, a stranger with a handful of tracts might ask, “Are you saved?” For most of my life, and especially…
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The first hymn I ever loved was “Fairest Lord Jesus,” in our hymnal as “Beautiful Savior” (ELW 838). Having not been raised in the church, then coming home from summer camp wanting to find out everything I could about God, I listened to the Christian radio station in Houston. Mixed in there with a lot of very bad theology and political…
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News flash: preaching involves writing. I study writing, and I have studied the writing that preachers do, and I am here to tell you: writing is a huge part of preaching. And writing is really, really difficult. The most difficult thing about writing isn’t always anything in the writing, it’s actually just doing the writing at all. Forcing yourself to…
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For a writing scholar and teacher, for a person who more than once a week sits on the carpet writing alongside children, for a person who teaches adults to journal and grad students how to own their knowledge, for a person with a blog (!)…. I have a hard time writing about myself. A really hard time. I’d rather write…
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I can’t say enough good things about this list of important women theologians over on Englewood Review of Books. Some I was familiar with, and others were new to me. All are examples of women writing about God, in a diverse array of perspectives. And can I just say, the word theologian hasn’t really kept a lot of currency in the…