I have always loved trees: the prehistoric ginkgo, the Angel Oak, the sweet Southern magnolia, a grove of olive trees, the elegant weeping willow. I fell in love with my husband hiking Sewanee’s famous Perimeter Trail beneath a towering fortress of pine trees. For my 40th birthday, David gifted me
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Sometimes "Life" (the Ukraine Russian war, the economic downturn, the Afghan Refugee crisis in Nashville, teenage shenanigans, family health issues, a child off at college, friends battling cancer, addiction, betrayal in their marriages, aging parents, a future unpredictable and unknown —the list is endless) leaves me feeling anxious and insecure
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How can we not feel discouraged by the current state of Creation? A tyrant with no moral compass is pillaging what is good. I discovered that my beloved Park where I run, hike, walk my dogs and pray is using toxic glysophate to “clean up” the overgrowth (kills nature, gets
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Welcome Back! When I signed off at Bread and Honey in June, I was convinced we had closed the chapter on Covid. Like a wild horse finally released from captivity back into wild I was ready to run free. Traveling, eating in restaurants, meeting new friends, I tossed my mask
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I am in the thick of exams at Vanderbilt Divinity School. For one of my classes I am writing a paper on the immanence (intimacy) and transcendence (beyondness) of God. Remarkable how God is at once near, as close as my heartbeat and as near as my breath, listening to
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Last week, I read an article, entitled, “Is bad news the only kind?” Professor Bruce Sacerdote from Dartmouth College noticed last year that all Covid-19 television coverage from FOX, CNN to PBS was overwhelmingly negative. Even when the news was hopeful, such as cases were on the decline, the news
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I have a friend who flips to the last page of every book on her shelf to make sure there is a redemptive ending before she commits to the story. Isn’t that what we all secretly desire—the chance to turn to the last page of our earthly story, or the
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If this year has taught us anything, it is how difficult, unpredictable, and downright scary it can be to be human. It has also taught us the remarkable capacity of love to more than see us through. We were never meant to manage this holy responsibility on our own. Jesus
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We just got a round-about in our neighborhood. My first experience of driving a roundabout was in graduate school in England. A friend invited me to her family home in the countryside outside of London. A roundabout is a traffic circle that offers several different directions to take. My first
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Lent has traditionally been a time for Christians to “give up” a pleasure such as chocolate or alcohol in a gesture of sacrifice and as a commitment to self-discipline. The small deprivation is meant to intentionally focus one’s attention on God. After this past year, I don’t think we can
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