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Hold on and Know You are not Alone
Today we grieve and we cry and we mourn. Since I heard the dreadful news about the mass murder and attack on the LGBTQ+ community, I haven’t been able to do much other than cry and ponder and sleep....
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El Odio no es Valor Cristiano
Como pastora abiertamente queer y orgullosamente Boricua, me urge declarar en voz clara y contundente, que nuestro Dios no es un Dios de odio. Dios nos hizo tal y cual somos- en toda nuestra gloria...
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Prayers for Pulse: UCC voices on the Orlando shooting
Here are words from voices within the United Church of Christ, following the tragic shooting during a Latinx night at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. For those mourning the compromising of their...
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A Message to Stillspeaking Youth Following the Orlando Shooting
Dear Still Speaking Youth Ministries, We pause to share in the grief, sorrow and pain following the injuries and great loss of 50 lives in a hate crime that occurred in Orlando, FL late Saturday, June...
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People I am not Interested in Hating
It took me until midnight on Sunday to get my thoughts together enough to write about the shooting at the Pulse club in Orlando. I decided I needed to make a list. Here’s what I wrote: PEOPLE I AM NOT...
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Creating a Culture of Consent
My sister-in-law messaged me with a link to a now “gone viral” post by the woman who was raped by a swimmer at a prominent university. My sister-in-law said, “You should make this required reading for...
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Can We Stand Together?
As people of faith, we have crafted a sinister sense of what it means to stand in solidarity. In the book written by the mother of Amadou Diallo (remember him?), “I Carry My Heart Across The Waters,”...
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The Blessing of Failures
As a pastor, I read a lot of books and articles about church practice. I read about the new best way to organize governing boards and committees that do away with tired forms from the 1950s. I read...
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God and Their Pronouns
I have been thinking a lot about pronouns lately. Much of it stems from the recent debate over bathrooms and who gets to serve as the potty police. I am not transgender, and yet the debate is personal...
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I Now Pronounce You Divorced
Maybe you heard the buzz a few years ago when Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin “consciously uncoupled”—shorthand for amicably divorced. At the time, I joined others in dismissing it as a New Age-y...
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Either Black Lives Matter or the Police: It’s Not That Simple
I stayed up late watching news of the killings of five Dallas police officers, just as I had stayed up late earlier in the week watching the coverage of the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando...
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Love “That Type of Christian” Anyway
Once, I was in need of a Bible. After a couple failed attempts at local booksellers, I did what many other self-identifying Christians would have done first: I went to a Christian bookstore. I don’t...
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Inspiration Porn: What It Is and Why It Hurts
Have you ever heard that sermon about the disabled kid? You know the one. Small child becomes disabled, parents are heartbroken, predictions are grim… Then skip forward about twelve years and this same...
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God is Beyond Limits, Including Gender Binaries
When progressive Christians talk about God, we talk about a God so big that neither our bodies or our words can hold the divine. But we try anyway. And if we believe that we all are created in the...
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The Fire at Standing Rock: Three Lessons for Continued Struggle
After spending part of this past week with faith leaders invited to a camp at Standing Rock, I came away with three important lessons in the continued struggle to defeat the Dakota Access Pipeline....
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#NativeLivesMatter: Protecting the Water at Standing Rock
“We are alive…. We are alive…. We are alive.” This was the first thing we heard when we arrived at the Water Protectors camp established by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and inhabited by...
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You’re Allowed to Laugh in Church
My church has enjoyed a little bit of fame recently. It started when I had an idea for our sign that would acknowledge the season and make light of how a lot of grocery stores, restaurants, and...
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A Kingdom of Nonbelievers? Maybe.
If you haven’t heard of Gretta Vosper, she’s currently center point of the biggest war in Christianity. Rev. Vosper, an ordained minister within the United Church of Canada, is currently embattled with...
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My Sexual Assault is More Than Locker Room Banter
Trigger Warning: The content of this post may be triggering for people who have experienced sexual assault. I was in college. I was drunker than I should have been—much drunker—and I was flirting with...
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I Don’t Know, and I’m Learning to be Okay with That
When you’re a recovering legalist, there is a phrase that hurts. It hurts to say, to think, to admit. But once it’s said, once you get used to saying it- the freedom it brings is oxygen for your lungs...
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