Wake up religions! This is not about you. This is about God being in imperfect human lives, all human lives.

No religion has a monopoly on God and no religious institution controls grace.

It’s not about spiritual country clubs, spiritual insurance policies or power.

It’s about human grace filled spiritual encounters with a living God incarnate in every moment, every place, every relationship, every stranger, every struggle, every person.

No religion controls grace or has a monopoly on God.
Religions are actually obscuring God under their religious baskets by claiming to limit and control the human experience of grace.

NO INSTITUTION or group owns, controls, limits, or even empowers these moments of grace in the spiritual journey. The church is called to awaken us to them, to pray for us and others to experience them, to encourage and support us in our life journey and to celebrate our encounters…

Communicating with a daughter who is deaf can be particularly challenging, especially because my signing skills are not at her level I have always said, however, that I have enough signs for her to understand what I am saying.

For instance:
Marie loves camouflage shirts, pants and sweatshirts. One day she asked me why the clothing looked like leaves, and I told her it was made that way so people could hide in trees in the woods to shoot deer or other animals. As expected, her mouth opened wide and the surprise showed in her glinting blue eyes. SHOOT an animal? She would never do that! She thought for a minute and then told me she was going to say the leave shirt is for playing hide and seek in the woods and no one could find her. I tend to think they might be looking for her for a…

5-9 March 2015. New Zealand doesn’t have historical buildings dating back hundreds of years, or ancient ruins dating back thousands. It doesn’t have exotic wild animals and birds like Africa, the Amazon and Australia. It’s not laden with must-see museums of the world’s great treasures like New York or London or Paris. What it does have is spectacular scenery and some of the best hiking in the world. Tramping they call it. In some countries it’s called trekking, we’ve always called it hiking, but in New Zealand it’s tramping and oh there are some magnificent places to tramp. It’s one of the great things to do in New Zealand.

There’s the four-day Kepler Track, the four-day Milford Track, the three-day Routeburn Track, the five-day Heaphy Track, and the one-day Tongariro Crossing, to name a handful of hundreds. We knew we weren’t fit enough to tackle even the nineteen kilometres of…

Regarding homosexuality: I want to free any friends and family to un-friend me that are offended by gay marriage. Homosexuality runs in my family at least all the way back to my great-great aunt who was brilliant and courageous enough to manage to become a pediatrician in the 1800’s and loving enough to start a clinic for the poor, but was never mentioned in our family because she lived with the same woman all her life. I think the purpose of life, including the Christian life, is to learn to love unconditionally and to serve others. The best, though not the only, school for learning unconditional love is marriage. Living with another person and learning to truly love that person, even someone of the same gender, while also serving others meets my criteria for spirituality and I believe with all my heart that it meets God’s. I respect others’ opinions and…

Sitting in church today, grumpy and petrified for Steven’s future, I barely listened to the sermon. During my mind meanderings, I heard Pastor suggest we all think of church as a hospital for those with broken peace. Yes, that is me! Broken peace! I started listening more closely, and he was speaking to ME! To paraphrase the sermon, church welcomes everyone looking for peace. Everyone is living their lives often faced with many challenges, tragedies, illnesses, possible prejudices against them and sadness. As much as I would like to think so, life is not all daisies and sunshine. Steven’s life sucks, and will continue to suck. How/why that happened or why God would “let” that happen is of no consequence. It happened. It is.

My peace was restored when I realized that in the scheme of this whole eternal universe, the time spent on earth is only a drop in…

Write, write, write. It can save your life. You don’t need lessons, just pour out your thoughts and your pain. But only when it is safe to do so. 

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“What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, so stumblest on my counsel?” – William Shakespeare

“Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite. – Marlon Brando

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At what age is privacy a right? a voice silenced

Years ago

I saw a painting

the rolling stone

of damnation 

the agony

of the wicked

said to be

eternal

I heard the story

but knew

I had been there

before

*

like childhood

the pain – eternal

escape beyond reach

attempts to record –

purged, destroyed 

that was before

marriage

from the frying pan

to the inferno

from there it

became worse

he too a victim

his choices were

different

i remained silent

Because one of our grandchildren was diagnosed at two years of age as suffering from Autism, I’ve attended many classes and conferences on the subject.
The documentary Looking for Me of dance therapist Janet Adler working with two pretty little girls, who were severely autistic, seems to me to illustrate beautifully what God has done for us by becoming fully human in Jesus.
One of the girls was close to three years old and the other was almost four, when they began therapy. Neither of the girls had ever wanted anyone, even their parents, to hug or hold them or even touch them. They made no eye contact. In fact, they didn’t respond to anyone’s presence except to try to keep their distance.
One little girl walked on her toes while waving or shaking her hands. She was in constant motion. Even when she tired, she would sit on the…