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500 Words: Moral Proximity
I am an avid reader; unlike my high-minded family and friends, however, I prefer novels to non-fiction. A well-written novel can introduce me to a whole new way of understanding ...
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500 Words: Close the Language Door
I thank my lucky stars (as my mom used to say) that I have a dog. Among other things, having a dog means that I am committed, no matter how ...
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Grace in a Fractured World
This wonderful conversation between Krista Tippett and the theologian Serene Jones is WELL worth the time required to read or listen--lovely work on the move from grief to genuine mourning, ...
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Response to reading Mark 11:1-11
by Anne Voegtlen March 27, 2021 Let’s say there is a village on our path. Let’s say we are asked to go ahead, to find a colt tied by a ...
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500 Words: Fact or Feeling?
Two conversations and two questions: in the first exchange, a woman assured me that she was right in her stance about wearing/not wearing a mask because she could “feel it ...
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Pandemic Response in Four Dimensions
“Are we all going through a dark night of the soul?” he said. “That’s what one of my teachers said last week.” I have pondered that question for a month ...
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500 (plus) Words, January 2021: Taller Than a Dog
As I took the dog out for our early morning walk Friday, I spotted her best friend down the street. Dolly, whose head rises a little over 18 inches off ...
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500 Words, January 2021: Holding the Post
I recently went up Red Mountain Road to drop off some jam for friends. Their driveway being an impassable pile of snow, I parked below and followed a trail up ...
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After Reading the Magnificat: Luke 1:46-55
by Anne Voegtlen Here, within me, around me is a new life I did not seek. Within me, around me, the old certainties have collapsed in the space of one ...
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500 Words, December 2020: Contagion
In a photo that went viral recently, an elderly man with COVID-19 is seen from the back. His head is buried in the arms of a physician as he weeps ...
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If you love the justice of Jesus Christ more than you fear human judgment then you will seek to do compassion. Compassion means that if I see my friend and my enemy in equal need, I shall help them both equally. Justice demands that we seek and find the stranger, the broken, the prisoner and comfort them and offer them our help. Here lies the holy compassion of God that causes the devils much distress.”
— Mechthild of Magdeburg
Your heart knows the way, run in that direction.
–Rumi