(The parameters of this host site prevent me from sending out daily Gratitude emails in this season of keeping this rhythm. I post them daily on my Substack account, which you can find here: https://substack.com/@stillhotunderthecollar . I also post a link to them daily on my Facebook page.) When candidates are preparing for ministry in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) we go to seminary, which is a professional graduate school, and at the same time (usuall

Thirteen years ago I started writing really brief reflections of gratitude during the Fifty Days of Easter.   Each season, this practice grounds me in ways that neuroscience has shown to be beneficial to our whole being.  I started sharing these reflections on social media as a sort of community building/accountability practice.  For the past few years I’ve also shared them on my website and this year I am migrating them to Substack.  The topics vary because what I am gratefu

It takes  boldness to stay.  To stay at the foot of the cross and watch and wait.. To stay when the forces of deceit and darkness work against you. We cannot all stay.  We do not all have it in us to do so.   Sometimes, leaving is the only way we survive.  It does not make us less than beloved.  Jesus loves the disciples who flee and lock themselves in a room.   But the women stay.   At the foot of the cross.   They looked after him in life.  They look upon him in death.  The

My writing is about to diverge from the normal pattern of Monday musings.  I have a practice, every Easter season, of writing 50 Days of Gratitude.*  Those will begin on Easter Sunday and continue daily (or almost daily) until the Feast of Pentecost (May 24th, this year).  Fifty Days.  It will be a different practice this year;  I suspect it will require  me to move grief to one side in order to catch a glimpse of the gratitude that is there.  Because it’s there and I feel it

For Christians, it is Holy Week; the week when we walk through the last week of the life of Jesus. Yesterday we waved our palm branches around and shouted “Save Us” (which is what Hosanna means). Thursday we will remember that Jesus gave us a new commandment: servant love. Friday he will die. For clergy, it is the marathon of work weeks. Multiple liturgies on top of the usual responsibilities. People still get sick, die. Where I serve, we try not to hold meetings and other ga

It’s spring; the season when Bruce died. It’s also the season when the earth does her best to show us signs of new life as everything seems to wake up at once. The cherry, tulip, and magnolia trees are BLOOMING! Daffodils wave from the sides of the streets. It’s magnificent (unless you have allergies and then it’s also miserable, still magnificent, but also miserable. Sorry, Robby, who has pretty terrible springtime woes in this way.) I am back from my Winter Retreat (see pre

It snowed last week in the PNW, an event that doesn’t often happen in March. And not much, but enough to change the plans I had for my Sabbath day as I-5 in blinding snow is not my idea of fun. Winter left us with that brief surprise.  If you’ve been a part of this Substack for awhile (thank you, I’m so glad) you might remember that I wrote early last summer of an intended rhythm of retreat.  I’d learned that the writer Pico Iyer takes a three day retreat in each season, inte

A couple of days ago I received a text message; another person from seminary had died, leaving his wife and young adult children.  My friend who had texted didn’t know any details.  M seemed so young, probably in his fifties if I had to wager a guess.  I don’t know why we always look for details when we receive news like this except to say that if we have them, we can determine whether or not this could happen to us.  Only it will, of course.  It will.   Someday, somewhere, s

February was such a short month, wasn’t it?  Just 28 days and another calendar page turned to greet March.  We are having a run of lovely weather - crisp and cold mornings, followed by sunny afternoons that make me forget to wear my coat home from work.  In Southern California, where my daughter lives, it’s been in the upper eighties.  It is the beginning of a turning toward spring.  It also marks nine months without my Beloved.  Nine months.  How can that even be possible? 

Today is my son’s birthday. R is the middle child of my three amazing kids and such a complex amalgamation of the characteristics of both a middle and a first born.  This tracks because my three have always resisted stereotypes and lived life as the very people they are created to be.   R is smart and kind and adventurous. He is such a present and caring son and brother and husband and friend and daddy.  He wants everyone to be happy and if he figures out how to make that wor

When someone close to you dies, there is a lot of paperwork to tend to.  Call it the business of bereavement.  Fortunately, Bruce and I had made the decisions around what would happen to our bodies when we died and we’d paid for it ahead of time.  At the time, it felt really good to manage those details and share them with our kids and then tuck them away because we couldn’t imagine that we’d need them anytime soon.  We were both very healthy and we were looking forward to ma

It is Candlemas in the life of the Church, the day when we remember the presentation of Jesus to the priests in the Temple in fulfillment of Jewish laws of purification. Forty days after Christmas Day,  it also marks the end of the Cycle of Light in the Church and is the day we typically bless candles for use in our congregations and homes in the coming year.   In some cultures this is the end of the Christmas season, so if your Christmas decorations are still up, now’s the t

Yesterday between worship services a member of our congregation approached me, a  bit hesitantly, and offered me a gift.  He wanted to tell me that he’d felt Bruce’s presence at Gloria Dei in strong and remarkable ways lately.  He said that he remembered how, during the closing hymn, I would always stop and step into the pew with Bruce, to sing the final stanza or two.  He said he could sense Bruce with me and he hoped I didn’t find that strange.   I found it….lifegiving.  br

For the past few days, Olympia has been engulfed in fog. Early in the mornings, that fog has felt frozen and cold and walking in it stings. It feels very much like a metaphor for grief. The grief that walks with me as I miss my Beloved. The grief of and for a country that has, frankly, lost its moral compass. Other griefs, too tender to name out loud, but whose very presence make it seem that having any sense of seeing a way forward is an impossible thing. Whenever Bruce and

Dear Ones….last week was hard.  It was hard in our lives as a nation and it was hard for me in my vocation for reasons that I won’t get into here but found me deeply disappointed.  It was a hard week for me with some relationships that have been long fractured and that from time to time bring sorrow back to the forefront.  The pace of my work and last week’s schedule also meant that I had almost no time available to me for the important work of reflection and discernment.  It

It’s Epiphany Eve!  Technically.  Although that’s not really a thing.  Nevertheless, tomorrow is the feast day of the Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas.  It’s the day we remember the arrival of the Magi at the manger, although scholars believe it would have taken them about two years to get to where they were going.   I’m reminded of what New Testament scholar Mark Allan Powell has to say about the magi. Powell notes that the writer of Matthew’s gospel, where this story

I’m writing this morning from bright and sunny Los Angeles, where I’ve been since the day after Christmas.  I flew back with Tay, who calls this sprawling city home, and we’ve been enjoying our time together ever since.   Here are some things I wish I could share with you in person: The sunshine.  It’s clear and bright and I’m super thankful I remembered to bring my sunglasses.   The ‘warm’ temperatures - you know, mid-high 60’s.   The fresh flowers and fruits and vegetables

Last night I drove up to the airport on the darkest, shortest day of the year, in the rains that have persisted, to retrieve our daughter for the Christmas holidays.  Luckily, traffic was light and we came home to a warm house filled with her brothers and her sister and her niece and nephew and lots of hugs and laughter and good food and singing.  Happy Birthday.  Jingle Bells.  And some song the boys learned at camp about not washing black socks.  (What???)   And sitting the

I awoke this morning to the sound of the rain and winds returning.  Washington and much of the PNW has been in an atmospheric river weather pattern, which is an apt descriptor for what it looks like outside.  We’d had a break over the weekend, but we knew this was coming.  My prayers are with everyone in danger of flooding and landslides and with those already impacted.   Last week I attended a grief group.  (Birdwalk: Gloria Dei has an amazing Grief Group, but this is not th