That’s right, and I don’t just mean playing Fruit Ninja. I’m saying that finally, FINALLY this is the year that I can join the Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. Can I really write something sharable, daily, for more than two days in a row? Honestly, I can do almost NOTHING with any consistency. But I’m giving…
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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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Guest post this week on Writers Who Care! It’s late summer and all is quiet on the seminary front. United Lutheran Seminary is now a reality, not a plan, but for me that just meant that no courses were offered this summer. So, a break. But quiet on the work and seminary front means things go noisy and active on…
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Writing is hard. No, seriously: it's really, really hard.
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On time for writing-- and time for praying
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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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Because I’m a writing scholar, I see everywhere the writing of narratives. Of course I mean the literal writing of narratives, as when I tell a story here, in words. But I also see everywhere how we write and revise the narratives of our lives, of identities, of our memberships and intentions. This idea isn’t mine, nor is it new.…
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Every once in a while, your varied passions and concerns link up. It’s like a little explosion of coherence, when your different strands of living suddenly line up and start playing together in a single thematic convergence. It happened to me when I heard this “found poem” made from a sermon, in the first episode of a new podcast. The sermon-poem…
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My one notebook reflects the integrity across my various gifts and arenas. I think this is how God wants me to be—extending my ministry to all the places I go, as professor, mom, friend, and perhaps pastor. I’m moving forward with candidacy in that spirit of wholeness.