mourning
We need ritual for our collective grief
Going through the motions together can move us toward healing.
Ministry with the grieving
Twenty of us gathered to talk about having a job that requires us to weep with those who weep.
The ones that got away
As CC books editor, I get to peruse a lot of books. Too bad I can’t review them all.
Luminous at the end: My sister's last 40 days
Modern medicine makes it difficult to die. Often, treatment seems to prolong not living so much as dying. With no earthly hope, Regan was spared all this.
Watchful women
When my mother died early on a spring evening in 1993, the ladies of the garden club and the bridge club gathered around my family to stand sentinel over the old-fashioned ritual of paying calls on the bereaved.
Words for grieving
It has been a season of losses. I've been reminded of the importance of knowing how to respond, and how not to.
Acquainted with grief: The church’s way with death
Regular churchgoing does not make you a friend of death. But if you sit in the pews long enough, you cannot help getting acquainted.
Prayer concern: Remembering all the victims of war
Each week my church includes a prayer for the families of American soldiers who have died. As the names are read, I try to hold them in prayer. But I have wrestled with these prayers.