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Light and Momentary Troubles
Job loss. Global pandemic. COVID-19 killing thousands. Racial injustices. Knees on necks. Anxiety. Depression. Social distancing loneliness. Sexual harassment. School bullying. It’s just one thing after another. Maybe you wonder if God is even paying attention. We all face discouragement. We try our best, only to be humiliated in front of our coworkers by a toxic boss who leaves us feeling unappreciated and discarded. We toil to make our marriages work, only to feel frustrated because nothing is changing. We give and serve at church, only to have our jaws hit the floor when we learn of members’ gossip and betrayal. It’s a good thing that what God says…
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Star-Spangled Hammer
In 1964 an engineering graduate student sailed on a 1000 passenger ship from Bombay to Genoa. Later that night he caught a train from Milan to London. From London he flew to New York. He took a bus to the Port of Ellis Island to process his immigration. This fourteen day journey began his road to the American Dream. He had eight dollars in his pocket. Years later, my father took his United States citizenship, pledging allegiance to the American flag with tears in his eyes. My father always taught us we should feel lucky to live in America—a nation of liberty and justice for all. He had escaped a…
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Part II: Every Tribe, Language, People, and Nation: Revelation and Flying Buttons
If anyone happens to see the elephant standing on my chest, please ask it to step off. Could be asthma. Could be anxiety. Maybe both. At the grocery store two days ago I couldn’t believe my eyes—a crowded store with minimal social distancing or use of face masks. The governor lifted the lockdown because he wanted to boost the economy—not because the coronavirus evaporated. I want things to go back to normal, too. Or do I? The Great Realisation, a video poem circulating YouTube and Facebook, outlines the way of the world prior to COVID-19. With the catchphrase, “Hindsight’s 2020,” a father reads his son a bedtime story describing…
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Forced Sabbath
“Normal” used to mean a good night’s sleep of six hours and falling asleep during prayer. Normal meant unfolded laundry, unmade beds, and unfiled papers on my desk. Normal meant a twenty-minute dinner with my husband eating take-out in front of the TV. The receptionist called eight days ago to ask if I wished to reschedule my doctor’s appointment. Yes, please. The office lies in the heart of the city with the second highest confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state. She asked if I’d like to reschedule for a time around Easter. I replied June or July. She laughed out loud. Strange. I hadn’t cracked a joke in two…
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Part I: Every Tribe, Language, People, and Nation
A couple years ago my favorite seminary professor told me of a women’s mission trip to India, and that I’m going. I don’t consider myself the global missions type. I’m sort of neurotic about international travel. It’s a combination of safety freak plus control freak. (Good thing I’m married to a psychotherapist.) Plus I have a love/hate relationship with India. But I would not turn down my favorite professor. But as the trip drew closer, my anxiety skyrocketed. Not sure how much you know about the current religious-political climate in India, but a certain group of Hindu nationalists don’t play nice with those who follow the Abrahamic religions. Some of…
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Every Tribe, Tongue, People, Nation
A couple years ago my favorite seminary professor told me about a women’s mission trip to India—and that I’m going. But wait. I’m not the global missions type. I wanted to vomit. No one has more anxiety about international travel than I do. Call it a combination of safety freak plus control freak. (By God’s grace I’m married to a psychotherapist.) Plus I have a love/hate relationship with India (née Rapistan.) But I would not refuse my favorite professor. As our departure date approached, my anxiety skyrocketed. On the Open Doors’ World Watch List for severity of persecution of Christians, India (formerly #31 a few years ago) lands at…
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The Beginning of the Beginning
How does watching old seminary class lectures on the Gospels sound to you? To my husband and me, it sounds like Date Night. (Not sure if you got the memo, but nerds rule the world.) And right out of the gate starting with Matthew Chapter 1, the Bible wastes no time slapping us in our faces. Matthew Ch. 1 is a genealogy written for Jewish readers. We Americans don’t get excited over genealogies. But family trees matter in many old world cultures. (My husband’s aunt knows her family tree going nine generations back.) And the genealogy in Matthew Chapter 1 matters because it culminates in Jesus’s birth. (Matthew 1:1-16). In…
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To Drink or Not to Drink
I heard a sermon on the sin of alcohol consumption, where the pastor claimed that whenever the Bible mentions wine, it’s referencing grape juice. He went on to say that alcohol is dangerous (possibly), addictive (agreed), and a narcotic (wait, what?) The DEA classifies narcotics (also known as opioids) as controlled substances. They reduce pain, induce sleep and euphoria, and do not sit on grocery store shelves. Even at a drug store, we cannot purchase narcotics unless a pharmacist has dispensed them via a doctor’s prescription. I’m not here to abolish teetotalism. I grew up less than eighty miles from Napa Valley, California, and have tasted (and spit out) some…
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The Other “F” Word
While posing for a photo with some female friends at a recent professional event, a colleague announced how well-endowed we are. After my jaw dropped, one of his cronies scuttled over to assure us his friend didn’t mean anything bad by the comment—that he meant it as a compliment. Well, 1962 called. They want their ideology back. Because reducing a colleague down to body parts is the opposite of a compliment. Furthermore, a thought ought to remain inside the confines of one’s head, or else it ceases being a thought. The next morning after a meeting, Mr. Pervy Mc Perv came up behind me, put his arm around my shoulder,…
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Did God Really Say?
I attended grad school in San Francisco in the 90’s. Each week a group of Christian students, faculty, and staff would gather in one of the small classrooms on the top floor for our CMDS meeting. This room had a floor-to-ceiling view of the Golden Gate Bridge where I can still picture the cars driving Northbound towards Sausalito. I adored the cute rainbow-painted tunnel arcs where the bridge merged with Marin County. My beloved friend’s uncle had painted those rainbows there many years prior. Every week I sat at the back of the room next to the window, gazing at the orange bridge stretched over hundreds of boats below. Some…
