Category: Faith & Discipleship
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We Wear Our Knowledge Like a Shell
When preparing a collection of my work, I received a cover draft from designer Martha Chlipala which featured a chambered nautilus. This led me down a deep, wonderful rabbit hole learning about their distant ancient relatives, the ammonoids, and cephalopods more generally. It also brought me back to Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.’s famous poem, “The…
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Let Me Be Humble
In the fall of 2023, I had an extraordinary opportunity to visit Italy and learn about St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi, two Christians who took the scriptural call to humility very seriously. After attempting to match this theme with several meters and tunes, I finally thought of the tune SLANE and found some…
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It Hurts to Grow
After God leads the people Israel up out of slavery in Egypt, they are full of gratitude. However, what comes next isn’t easy, and they sometimes wish they could go back. When we are living through something new, whether a blessing or a challenge (or both!), we may also struggle to accept our circumstances and…
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Ways Will Open
In Parker Palmer’s book on discernment, Let Your Life Speak, he writes of a time when he was struggling with his vocation, hoping and praying that “way would open” as Quaker tradition teaches. A wise elder suggested that often we find our way forward not from a clearly illuminated next step but from closures behind…
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In the Faithfulness of Service
Christians sometimes argue about what is better: Martha’s service or Mary’s worship, the effort of works or a receptiveness to grace, achieving a position of responsibility or growing in humility. Jesus reminds us that we are called to love God with all that we do, and with all that we are. In the faithfulness of service,in the…
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When Our Minds Are Set and Certain
How can we work against the many forces urging us towards polarization and division? This text was inspired by A Sanctified Art’s theme for Lent in 2025: Everything In Between: Meeting God in the midst of extremes. When our minds are set and certaingrant us grace that intercedes.When our hearts are hard with habitease us…
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If a Church Is Not a Building
As churches face wave after wave of change, it can be challenging to discern what we should be holding onto, and what we may need to let go of. May we persevere in faithfulness, regardless of what forms our ministries take. I was honored that this piece was shared as part of a hymn festival…
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Our Hearts Proclaim a Living God
Elizabeth A. Johnson, CSJ, has called us to faithful and expansive language for God for decades with work including the groundbreaking book She Who Is (1991). More recently, she wrote: “All-male images of God are hierarchical images rooted in the unequal relation between women and men … Once women no longer relate to men as patriarchal fathers,…
Hannah C Brown 