The Sacred Everyday

A new hat for Easter, my grandmother used to say. A new spray of flowers on a hat and pristine gloves to match the crisp shine of a new dress. But if the sale of brown eggs didn’t allow for a new dress, then, at the very least, one must scrounge up for a new pillbox to don come Resurrection Sunday. It’s proper, she’d say. Symbolic of new life in the Risen Christ. Her purse, a tapestry of roses and dark vines, lies on the upper shelf of my closet. Now and then, I take it down, unlatch the clasp of roses and run ... Read Full Story

Just last week, I took this picture at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. The photo I photographed is mother and child, beside the child's coffin tree. In the Chinese village where the original photo was taken, the tradition is to choose such a tree at a child's birth. When the child grows into old age, she will order the tree to be cut down, carved and hewn, made ready for her eventual burial. One week later, I learn that my gardening grandmother has need of such a tree. A few months short of her 95th birthday, she leaves me to remember her. ... Read Full Story

In the beginning God ordered …. Or is it: In the beginning God judged? Demanded? Exacted? In the beginning, God created. God spoke words drenched with beauty, rained down poetry, and the world, fresh with dew and wet colors, sprung up. In the beginning, God was an artist, captivated with color and textures, patterns and light. He streaked the black with silver brilliance, fringed iridescence, lacy and shimmering, on wings of lighting butterflies, bejeweled darting humingbird with ruby necklace. He splashed hues, composed symphonic sounds, wove daringly, boldly. In the beginning there was wonder. Where did it go? When did we, God’s children, become ... Read Full Story

Today, in my Secret Place, I drink You in through emerald ivy and hemlocks hanging still in the sun. Sitting here so satisfied, it strikes me that the confinement of adults and children— between work and school and supposed "leisure" activities that always occur indoors— has a sense of spiritual battle in it. After all, if sitting with Your creation is a powerful way for us to experience You, then surely to keep us from it is a cool deceit, a spiritual coup meant to disable us. As Krista Tippett says in Speaking of Faith, "We appreciate religious mystery and truth in words and ... Read Full Story

On the trail at Mount Hermon, a world away from home, I step into an ancient cathedral on sacred California ground. Red-brown priests stand tall, rough to the touch, embraced, entwined in ivy, swaying in the wind. I feel dizzy in their presence. They worship in creaks and groans beside a creek baptismal, that ripples the love of God into my soul with quiet gurgles, flips and dashes. I wind my way down a steep path, lose my footing, swallow hard, wonder how I will ever ascend. Until I reach water level, sit in the soft sand beside the creek's turns, reflections, cleansing promises. ... Read Full Story