An Old Emergence

Ash Wednesday is an especially poignant moment in the liturgical year for me. Six years ago on Shrove Tuesday, I came out. It was the beginning of a long few months of inviting people into my truth. It was a mixture of terror and jubilation, but it all began with a conversation that day when I finally accepted who I was. The following day, after a beautiful Ash Wednesday service at Glendale Baptist Church (my first Ash Wednesday service), our pastor's family was in a car wreck where their youngest child was killed.  That Lenten season was difficult. Our church family grieved. In many ways, those of us who knew and love Emmie still grieve.  And every year when I receive my ashes, I feel those two emotions profoundly: joy and grief. I feel them to my very core as though I am still 21 years old. While both have faded as I've grown and healed and changed, that moment of the imposition of ashes brings them back. The rawness of those juxtaposed emotions engulfs me. ...

The month of January is filled with reminders of challenging times for me. Tonight, as I sat on my couch watching Rent , I was reminded of the people I carry in my heart. I was reminded of the people from whom I’ve been parted in the past. In December, I observed the fifth anniversary of the death of my best friend’s little brother. Oh goodness, he was amazing. He was a ball of creativity, of innovation, of life. It is no easier to bear the burden of his death now than it was five years ago. I see him in little things every day, and I wonder how he would approach every challenge I face. And I pray that I do his memory justice. In just a few days, we will observe the ninth anniversary of the passing of Susan Bank. I cannot believe it has been almost a decade since the death of my tenth grade English teacher. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of her and the myriad things I learned from her. It is amazing how one person can touch your life so profoundly. I would n...

“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.” –Desmond Tutu My mind is racing to so many places tonight. I just don’t know where solace can be found. I want so badly to write some great, insightful response to the travesty of justice that was the execution of Troy Davis. But all I have in my heart is sadness.

I wrote a blog this morning responding to the tragedy in Japan and the entire Pacific Rim. It was poorly written and emotional. I am not saying that is bad. Tragedy occurring during Lent has become a bit of a hot-button issue for me. So while I affirm my frustrations and the difficulty of understanding why tragedies seem to go hand-in-hand with this particular liturgical season in my life, I don’t really feel like ranting against God or bemoaning my state of existence does anyone any good. And so I deleted it. Instead, today let us take moments to lift prayer to whomever we pray for the loss felt around our world today and for the recovery of those who have lost everything.

An insightful reflection from Rev. Diana Butler Bass in response to the shooting that occurred this morning in Arizona involving Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Follow the link HERE .

(if you missed part 1, you can check it out here) I am resolved to do things differently this year. I am finding out that I have a fair bit of time on my hands post-graduation, pre-working. While I anticipate having a job of some sort secured by next week, I will still have a significantly larger amount of time on my hands than when I was in school. So I'm going to be intentional with my time.

I really hate making New Years resolutions. I’ve done it before, but they have never amounted to anything worthwhile. My resolutions have always been somewhat trivial, intensely focused on making me better than I was before. It’s a bit of an unhealthy cycle. But not this year. This year I am standing at a crossroad. The finale of 2010 was exceptionally difficult for me. I graduated from college, finishing up four and a half years at a place that transformed my life. I moved back to Hoover, leaving behind a life that I had spent half a decade building. I left a church, and for the first time in my life doing so was devastating because I loved the church, not because I had been betrayed by it.

God of peace and light, we come into your presence today as a community dedicated to hearing from you. Our hearts are heavy with care for the hurt in our world. We think of our sisters and brothers in our global community. In Haiti and Chile there are members of our body struggling to see the Holy amidst destruction and pain. We pray for our extended family in Cuba as they worship with us this morning in spirit. Our hearts cannot help but dwell on the hurt in our own community that we’ve experienced over the last two weeks. Show us comfort Lord. Give us healing. We pray desperately for your divine peace. Yet we cannot help but thank you for the moments of celebration. Today we celebrate the decision this week to advance equality in our nation’s capital, even as we work toward the same goals in our own community. We also ask your blessing on the tithes and offerings of money that are to be brought. May what we give be used to bring your peace and light into each of the lives our communi...

today i sat in church and cried. i cried hard. my friend allyson, who was sitting next to me, obviously noticed but said and did nothing. for this i am incredibly grateful because, at the time, i was really struggling with why the service was affecting me so much. but now i really know why. today during church, the interim pastor presented an opportunity for people to make themselves vulnerable. he asked any family dealing with job loss to come forward to the altar so that the church could gather around them a pray over them. and i saw people come forward, letting themselves be honest to their church that they were struggling and were in need of prayer, i started to cry. it moved my soul. i sat on the third row of a church with which i have fairly profound disagreement doctrinally and felt the holy spirit move. i saw the church as it should be. i saw members of a christian community hurting, and i saw their sisters and brothers surround them. from that point on i just couldn't keep...