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When, in my adult life, I first heard church folks start talking about “taking on” something for Lent rather than “giving up” something, I thought I would lose it. I don’t remember observing Ash Wednesday until high school or giving up something for Lent until college.

I'd stopped at the big box electronics emporium for a gift, and as I browsed, something caught my eye. It was a demo headset, a virtual reality jobbie, one designed to take one of the giant Android slab-phones and turn it into an immersive 3D experience.

To practice means that you do something you can do in order to do something that you can't. For example, if I decided I wanted to run a marathon, I would know that despite my best intentions I can't run 42 kilometers but I can run, if I was determined, maybe 1 km. So I would practice.

“So, Joanna, what do you do?” My comfort level with this question depends on the context.

I dropped in on our local English training center for newcomers to Canada today. It wasn’t a planned visit, but I was having a conversation at a downtown coffee shop about how the Syrian families we sponsored are doing, and I said something to the effect of, “Well, they’re across the street right now in English classes. Wanna wander over there and see?”

Over these past days, I have been reminded again that at our best, to be human, and to be human community, is to live betwixt and between muddle and ambiguity. We are, unavoidably, marked by profound inconsistencies and misdirected hopes. We are an enigma—even, and perhaps especially, to ourselves.

Something happens when we pray. It may not be what we want or hope or even recognize, but something happens when we communicate with the Almighty. I remember a Sunday school teacher from my childhood who taught our class how to pray.

I love the United Church of Christ. I do. After growing up a “spiritual but not religious” “none” at the tail end of Generation X, I found my way into Christ’s church at the age of 17 and was baptized.

This is the first thing I know about you: you are girls. This is still a stunning revelation to a mom of (previously) all boys.

On a nearby state road, there was a billboard from one of the golf courses in town that said, "When was the last time you tried something for the first time?" The implication, of course, is that you should try golf.

I started with the best of intentions. We all did. My seminary classmates and I absorbed a great deal of advice from—where else?—an older generation of pastors, and then we did our best to follow that advice, working long hours, honing our pastoral skills, sometimes even receiving additional and impressive-sounding degrees.

Thirty years ago this morning, the space shuttle Challenger exploded. I happened to be in a car and heard the news on the radio. It wasn't until hours later that I saw the footage. I was not a fan of President Reagan, but he had some leadership skills that I've come to admire. 

It was a silly video, really, just a little bit of feel good fluff that drifted into my social media filter-feeding.

On a brutally cold and foggy Friday afternoon, our local sponsorship group welcomed our new Syrian friends to our city in Canada. Several times as I was driving them from the airport to the home we had prepared for them, I wondered what must have going through their minds as they looked out on the frosty white scenes that greeted them. Have they dropped us off at the North Pole?! I couldn’t ask them what they were thinking, of course, because I speak zero Arabic and they speak next to no English.

The Gospel according to Luke has its distinct features: the storybook birth narrative; the poetic songs of Zechariah, Mary, and Simeon; and the heart-warming parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son. In this Sunday's lectionary reading (Luke 4:14–21), however, we get to the heart of the matter and hear what truly makes Luke distinct: a Jesus whose focus is salvation for those in need. Only Luke gives us this encounter, in which Jesus chooses for himself a scripture passage that defines his ministry.

Even our small city has its share of violent incidents requiring a forceful response from police. Maybe we’ve been lucky, or maybe being in a small city makes a difference, or maybe our police and sheriff departments are well-trained and well-disciplined. Whatever the reason, we have not had to face questions about whether the police were justified in using deadly force. Recently an armed man with a history of violence sent a text to another household that he was on the way to kill them.