Friday Florilegium

Cup of tea and book in hand on a snowy Iowa morning, I’m celebrating the first deeply quiet day after months filled with moving and teaching and finishing...

Deeper Magic

Hungry and tired, she waited for the campus bus, the visible world reduced to the lamp light’s reach. The chill made her burrow deeper into her jacket, th...

Lost and Found

  For many followers of Jesus, today is the Feast of Mary. Rarely do I find stories that do her justice, but this one, a meditation on Jesus gone missing b...

Your Brain on Stress

Recently, I had the privilege of speaking at the Bethany Presbyterian Church’s Women’s Retreat on spiritual practices, the brain, and living in the ...

Friday Florilegium

  Do not be discouraged at your faults; bear with yourself in correcting them, as you would with your neighbor. Lay aside this ardor of mind, which exhaust...

Suffering as Idol or Icon

I won’t mince any words. The past six weeks have run the gamut from delightful to downright awful. In early December, I woke up with heart-pounding, stoma...

The Deeper Magic

Hungry and tired, she waited for the campus bus, the visible world reduced to the lamp light’s reach. The chill made her burrow deeper into her jacket, th...