Glorious Eggs and Toast: How Embodied Spirituality Counteracts Trauma
After working through a layer of trauma in my story, I distinctly remember being ridiculously excited about eggs in the morning. Somehow, the prospect of being able to wake up and make myself scrambled eggs filled me with a deep, irrational joy. It was as if God had enriched all the colors of life, quickening […]
Postures and Progression of the Gospel: Reflections through Art and Race
During my sabbatical in 2020, my friend Robin (Klapheke) Jones excitedly asked me if I had any ideas stirring for the painting I now had time, space, and motivation to do. Her question and enthusiasm spurred me out of my laziness, and several months later, out came a four-piece series on the progression of the […]
Embodied Spirituality: Giving Up Prayer for Lent
Back in college, I often lay awake late into the night, mentally scrolling through my ever-increasing prayer list. Sometimes I would drift into sleep, only to jerk awake at two a.m., horrified to realize I had missed praying for the last few people.
Hospitality for the Life of the World
God’s hospitality floods the pages of Scripture, and our embodiment of His Word enables us to join Him in bringing healing to people’s lives.
Does Fit = Faithful?
Revealing a false equation that results in disordered thinking, eating, and emotional attachments as we swap the balanced, kind care of our God-given bodies for the pursuit of cultural constructs of beauty and fitness.
The “Wow” of Spiritual Sexuality
I never set out to write on sexuality, God knows. But so many women in their twenties wept in my counseling office (and I, with them) about sexual experiences they regretted, I had to pick up a pen. I never expected, though, that study and writing on sexuality would crack open a new window for […]
A Whole Lotta VUCA
In the mid-80s, the Army War College developed a term to describe the global environment at the end of the Cold War. I use it in our household to describe ever increasing amounts of chaos, looking to my husband and stating with a knowing look, “That’s a whole lotta VUCA.” In the same way, COVID […]
Eight Hours of Sleep
A colonel I knew said that when he was deployed to Afghanistan as a battalion commander, he made sure to get the best sleep of anyone in his unit. That seemed odd—shouldn’t he have worked longer and harder, sacrificing his rest for the sake of his soldiers? But he had an explanation for that. His […]
Presence: Face to Face
I survived two years as an EDGEr, an overseas mission trip to Norway, and most of my dating relationship with my now-wife, Heather—all without a cell phone. Shocking, right? What does it mean for us to be really present with each other?
Strength in Masculinity
On Halloween, my kids excitedly put on their costumes to run house to house for their annual candy-induced sugar high. My four-year-old son wore a full knight costume, complete with helmet, shield, and shining silver sword. Inside this little boy lived a mighty warrior ready for battle. But what did this young knight do first? He poked his two-year-old sister with his plastic sword!
