Buttercups in Bloom

As followers of Jesus we rarely talk about the seasons in our lives when our souls are dry. We keep going through the motions but it seems as though nothing will quench the thirst.  The words on the pages are just that; words.  The scriptures seem hallow and flat as if there were written for someone else and some other situation. We read yet nothing sticks.  We journal yet our soul longs for more.  We go to worship and sing hymns yet our souls miss the movement of the music.  We bow to pray and our minds are blank. If we were honest with one another we would confess that our souls are dry, that all the nourishment has left our soul and that we are weary.  Yet, alas we remain silent, walking into church, studying in our small groups as if we are perfectly filled and that all is well. Let me share with you that you are not alone.  Last year I worked really hard with the church to fulfill our 5 year long term goals and am currently working our leade...

Today is one of the most somber days of our Christian year. A day in which we gather together for a service penitence.  A service in which we connect to the sorrow that we have caused others.  It is a time of looking within the depths of our being to acknowledge the places where we have walked away from God, separated ourselves from God's purpose for our lives, and to confess the ways that we have chosen our selves over God and others. For many Christians around the world, it is a time to give something up.  A time in which the dust that is placed on our foreheads in the stillness of the service reminds us that we are being called to remove the unwanted from our lives.  In year's past I have tried to focus on trying to take on a spiritual practice that I might not normally do within my daily routine and yet somehow something is different within my being this year (this season). Recently, I've been thinking about Lent in terms of the characteristics that I posse...

Yesterday I was in a meeting with people I love and while we were working through the details of the event someone jokingly said, yeah I'm OCD about that.  I felt my heart sink.  I knew that the phrase carries with it a complex layering of emotions and rules that cannot be merely dismissed. I knew everyone laughed and we all knew what that meant.  It meant that we had a finite way of approaching that particular area.  We've all heard it, we've used it as a way to dismiss a sense of rigidity in our organization, time and schedules.  I'm a person of structure, organization and schedules and in the past I've used the term myself but in the last year, I've come to understand I can no longer use the simple acronym as a way to describe my personality. The things that you cannot are the very things that are impacting the person's everyday existence. OCD is deeper than someone holding onto every single piece of trash, purchasing items that may seem useless an...

Last night I received a text from my mom ' be sure to look at the moon.' I was grateful that she reminded me to check out the super moon and all of this glory.  Looking at moons isn't new to us.  My parents encouraged me to spread my wings and so I left the nest to attend college 5 hours away from home in the deep south. I think college was where I first realized the fullness of racial tension.  I'd grown up being part of a school system that bussed their students across town to integrate students.  I'd been the minority for most of my school aged life.  I had been part of a community of friends that didn't see the color of anyone's skin, we didn't care which neighborhood you lived in or what kind of car you drove (we were just lucky to have a car at all to drive).  We danced together...we laughed together...we cried together.....we hated assignments together....we worked on homecoming floats together....we celebrated birthdays together....we stood u...

Orange, yellow, red and green surround me this evening. The second Saturday of the month always rolls around a bit quicker than I want. The second Saturday of every month is always filled with a dread of all the work that lie ahead and yet a joy of all that is to come. The second Saturday of every month I step into our church building and am in awe of the persons that fill the pews, hallways and second floor. Our building is filled with families from our county (depending on the data it's the poorest to the third poorest county in the state of Tennessee), students from a local private school, university students from a prestigious private school, professors from the university, retirees and their grandchildren that live within our community and members of Morton Memorial UMC. Every inch of our space is used...pallets of food, bags of produce, carts used to transport the food to the cars. Today I did not want to be there. I'm suffering with bronchitis and on any ...

I've been thinking about steps a great deal today. Currently my fitbit tells me that I've walked 13,642 steps since I put it on this morning just before breakfast. While I have been thinking about the physical steps that we've been taking each day today I was thinking about steps on a very different level. We began our morning sitting on the Southern Steps of the Temple Mount.  The steps are the steps that pilgrims from the southern end would have terversed in order to enter the top of the Temple Mount. The view is breathtaking.  But something happened on the steps this morning that bothered me and clung to me for the remainder of the day.  The four of us were sitting, reading our Bibles, walking through the reflection questions that I had crafted for this holy space and another large group came and seem to overtake the space without any regard for the time of prayer that we were having.  Sharing space isn't/was't the problem because here in the Land of the Ho...

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name."  Psalm 100:4 We awoke to the stready flow of movement this morning. The click and clack of shoes hitting the pavement as people made their way to and from work. Cars below us giving their short beeps to move the car in front of them along or to jump into the roundabout where each car can barely put a sheet of paper between each bumper. The solitude of the Galilee behind us. Deliberately and slowly we blessed our food and gave thanks for the journey that we had traveled. We were not yet ready for the hustle and bustle of the city but our home was calling.  Climbing down the large stone steps we found our place in the morning shade.  We sat, we gave thanks once again and we entered the Holy City with reverence. It was a quiet and harsh day for our souls.  The push and the pull of the city was  a bit overwhelming. All senses were on overload as we wal...