Last fall, I co-led a biweekly reading group on race and procedural justice for my local community. Our participants included a pastor, scientist, software engineer, writer, librarian, mathematician, and startup employee—a range of Asian and Anglo middle class folks
This week, Sarah Bessey sparked a twitter conversation that rapidly took flight among Christian men and women. Women continue to share painful and even surreal experiences under the #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear hashtag– some of which I’ve reflected on here. Yet the conversation has quickly taken a hopeful note, as both men and women…
I’m loving the conversation about #ThingsOnlyChristianWomenHear. It’s hard to hear the stories–and frustrating when people protest that “not all Christians…” or “but what about X religion?” without pausing to listen. And yet… it’s helpful to hear women express the frustration of being told that the genders are equally honored–while…
I recently spoke in my faith community about how poetry connects us to each other and out into the world. If you’re interested, you can listen via this link (starting at minute 35), or read the full text of my reflections below. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ “Where can I go from your…
I recently sent these tips to my guy, on deflecting a flirt by quoting lines from stock video game characters (“NPCs“): The Guy pointed out that it looks fun, but he hasn’t had girls giving him bad pickup lines recently. I can fix that. Because we met in church, I’ve…
One path doesn’t work for everyone, as I wrote before. So people are starting to discuss just what an honest commitment means. The New I Do suggests that young couples–and even long-married folks–discuss their values and goals in a relationship, before making or reaffirming a commitment. In this model, you could choose: A “beta”…
So that path to becoming a monk or nun looks very different from America’s “relationship escalator.” You know, the one that moves smoothly from dating to relationship to engagement to marriage to children, in perfect happiness: Or as Jenna McCarthy puts it in her TED talk, two million American couples each…
Don’t have time to read right now? Consider downloading the PDF of this four-post series here. In college, I considered becoming a nun. I think I was drawn by the focus, the devotion to a way of life. I even took private vows for a year… thinking that if I stepped…
In my early twenties, I found an old journal. Wanting to preserve my past, I sat down to type each entry into the computer. But I was jolted out of myself when the phone rang: my teenage brother was in the hospital with significant injuries. By the time we got to the…
I still remember the day that my fellow student Joe Vohlers died. News spread quickly on campus, and we set aside textbooks to gather in cramped dorm rooms, televisions blaring. We were stunned. Joe had keeled over suddenly from heart trouble, gone from the popular crowd to — dead,…