Valentines and Hellos

For Wilshire Baptist Church

On Valentine’s Day in grade school we’d make mailboxes out of shoeboxes decorated with red construction paper, glitter, ribbons and other arts and crafts stuff. Some years the mailboxes would sit on the corner of our desks and other years we’d line them all up together on a shelf along the wall. At different times during the day we’d go around dropping Valentine’s cards into each other’s mailboxes, and at the end of the school day we’d have a party with cupcakes and punch and we’d open our mailboxes to read the cards inside.

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Face to Face, Eye to Eye

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Sunday morning, we visited The Episcopal Church of Saint Thomas the Apostle for a discussion about sharing faith through fiction, and then we stayed for worship. It was a rich and warm experience, and I especially liked the moment when the rector carried the Gospel Book from the altar down the aisle into the center of the church. Everyone was standing and turned to face her, which meant that as she read the day’s Gospel, we not only were seeing her but were looking beyond her into the faces of one another.

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Resetting the Spirit

For Wishire Baptist Church

I’ve been stuck on what to write or say recently. There is so much anger in every corner, ugliness on every side. So much noise in our streets and in our social networks. Everyone has something to say about everything and yet everyone is offended by what each other is saying. Everyone is an expert. Everyone has a voice. Everyone is talking and nobody is listening.

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