In recent social media posts, you may have noticed that I recently started a part-time job at Starbucks coffee. The position offers me benefits and a little steady income while starting this coaching, training and organizational development business. (Being a single...
They started talking about Julian of Norwich. As people do. In a casual conversation one day over Zoom, Rev. Nicole Pickens reminded Rev. Nicole Havelka about Julian of Norwich – a 12th - 13th century monastic and mystic who lived in times shockingly similar to our...
Leading up to the third Sunday of Advent this year, I kept thinking about the 2006 movie “The Pursuit of Happyness.” The movie stars Will Smith as Chris Gardner, an aspiring entrepreneur and sales person who gets an opportunity to do an unpaid stockbroker internship...
Each Christmas season, I make a ritual of watching the Frank Capra Christmas Classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Though I know there is a strong cult following for the movie starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, there is an equally large group of those who furrow their...
Changing the words to the Metta meditation practice wasn’t even on my radar. I had started the month of practicing loving kindness meditation, specifically the Buddhist Metta practice, as part of my Meditation Teacher Training by following the script and recorded...
Just a couple of weekends ago, I participated in a workshop on the yogic practice of Sankalpa. In this practice, you pick something that you truly desire to see happen in the next 6-18 months. It is akin to a New Years resolution, only it goes far deeper. The practice...
As a kid, my parents almost never needed to ground me. I never climbed out my window to go to a party in the middle of the night. I never staggered home, slurring words and reeking of alcohol. I managed my own calendar of extra curricular activities and homework. I...
You just know something’s up when the theological and spiritual significance of darkness makes the cover of Time Magazine. The cover article this week explores ideas in Barbara Brown Taylor’s new book, Learning to Walk in the Dark. Throughout history, Christianity has...
This is part of my Listening in Lent series in which I reflect on my experience of practicing listening during this holy season. There’s something about the dark paneling, brown, leather couches, paintings from local artists along with the cacophony of multiple...
Although I rarely got in trouble in school as a kid, the few detentions I did get in high school were for talking too much in study hall. After that, my mother always made me take an extra book to read during those times when I was done with my homework and had spare...
Following the Light is a series of blogs that point to the brights spots where I see renewal and rebirth in the world of religion and spirituality. The series will continue through the Christian season of Epiphany. The world turned its eyes to the news that followed...
I don’t know about you, but I remember quite vividly the wiggly anticipation with which I greeted Christmas Eve as a child. I remember dressing up in my new Christmas dress (often a red one which was a favorite color even back then) and my annual pair of black patent...
Embracing loss in Lent can help you -- and the church -- move forward.
I’m not the kind of person you’d ever catch wearing golf shorts and gloves, pulling out my nine-iron to tee off on the 7th hole. My fast-moving, often scattered brain can’t imagine spending a Saturday afternoon this way; much less why anyone would sit at home and...