Reflections on
Life in Community
New Friends in the Neighborhood
One woman needs a place where she can get her power wheelchair through the door; her husband uses a walker. Another woman is excited about having a good place to care for her grandsons and about making new friends, especially since she heard about weekly community dinners with neighbors. They are among the first in…
Thanksgiving 2025
It is Thanksgiving, with a special emphasis on being thankful, but all year I try to begin messages with appreciation for the people I am writing to. This habit reminds me each time to think of something that I can be grateful for before I move into my request or concern. So here is part…
What does unselfish love look like?
In families, love looks like two white-haired sisters giving physical and emotional care to their sister for long months after illness left her unable to move or speak. Love looks like two sisters giving emotional and financial support for years to their sister when her depression and mental illness spiral into abusive fury against them…
Who is My Neighbor?
On Independence Day, I put on my clergy collar and stood on a hot sidewalk with my homemade LOVE ALL OUR NEIGHBORS sign. About 400 energetic people brought colorful signs with a common theme: we do not consent to authoritarian policies. Our elected leaders had just voted to strip medical care and nutrition assistance that…
Is It Really Worth It?
“All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a far distance they saw and greeted them….” Hebrews 11:13a It’s rarely an accident when people get left out of the narrative. There is investment in every story we tell: who it chooses to highlight, the way people are presented, the mistakes…
Grace Here
I missed a meeting last week. Completely forgot, even though it was on my calendar, which I’d checked an hour before. Just didn’t show up to the Zoom room where people expected me, and didn’t even realize it for another couple hours. Some of it was an unexpected phone call from someone in distress, but…
Regrouping while still in the wilderness (Part 2)
No matter the duration of intense destruction, a disaster doesn’t end when the trembling bedrock or raging storm is over, nor when we’re told it’s ok to return home, nor when the body of our comrade is buried, nor when a vaccine arrives. The disorientation, the loss and attempts to rebuild, the crisis of trust…
Working together for healing and life
Dear friends and neighbors, As the ice and snow and chill of winter come on this week, the air has a different smell to it. The colors of leaves and grasses stand out against the snow that falls, and melts, and falls again. I invite you to pause, and look around, and take a moment…
Regrouping while still in the wilderness (Part 1)
Dear kindred in Christ, We’ve been living through so many disasters the past few years. Devastating fires, flooding, droughts, freezes like we haven’t seen before. Another Black person murdered, on tape,. Another, another. Another. And we shudder, we have seen this before A world-wide pandemic and over 5 million people dead as we enter a…
“Give to the one who asks”
Jesus says: Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:42) Think back this past week or month- when you had cash in your pocket (which is a rarer practice these days for many people) and someone asked for help, or…
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
We are all a work in progress.
God is our Guide.
Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.
Holy Spirit, Greensboro 