Dying Empty (Holy Week Series)
By Avril Z. Speaks
A couple of weeks ago, I attended the funeral of my dear friend. To say that his death was a shock is an understatement. Even writing that sentence still gives me chills.
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By Avril Z. Speaks
A couple of weeks ago, I attended the funeral of my dear friend. To say that his death was a shock is an understatement. Even writing that sentence still gives me chills.
Speakers: Bethany, Henry, and Peter
Meet three Jesus followers who are living a vocation of celibacy.
By Rev. Margaret Ernst
Dedicated to Jan Richardson, in gratitude for her book The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief
save this blessing for when you most need it.
By Kelley Nikondeha
Pharaoh’s daughter was not the only one to see small bodies washed ashore. We have seen them too.
Born into privilege, Pharaoh’s daughter Bithiah* was nursed on narratives of Egyptian greatness.
By Elrena Evans
Originally published Mar 1, 2017
The alarm clock rings early, and I am still asleep when it rings—an oddity, for an erstwhile early riser. But I am full from stacks of pancakes and fastnachts consumed last night at our church’s Shrove Tuesday celebration, and the surfeit of starch makes me sleepy.
By Stephen Mattson
Our faith shouldn’t be co-opted by partisan politics. Our hope shouldn’t replace wisdom and prudence.
By Deborah Watson
Dust gets a bad rap. We chase it out of our homes, or we think we should. So why a meditation on the benefits of dust? Even in the Bible, of the 100 references to “dust,” almost all of them are negative.
By Micky ScottBey Jones
After the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012, I was forever changed. Nothing could remain the same—not my mothering, not my relationships, not my faith. I needed more than The Power of a Praying Wife.
Speakers: Tom & Eufemio and Patti & Sue
A conversation with two same-sex married couples who love Jesus
By Dorothy Thompson
Peace has to be created, in order to be maintained. It is the product of Faith, Strength, Energy, Will, Sympathy, Justice, Imagination, and the triumph of principle. It will never be achieved by passivity and quietism.
By Katie Hays
For almost two decades I served small, traditional congregations where heteronormativity was the unspoken rule. In those churches we were attentive to our ethic of hospitality: How can we be more welcoming to them, the people who are our guests?
Compiled by Kristyn Komarnicki and OTL alumni
Like loving dialogue, like the Holy Spirit, music has the ability to connect people across deep differences. While the music we cherish is deeply personal, and we don’t all enjoy the same kinds, it can still provide a window for us to access and start to understand each other’s deepest loves and longings.Below are listed a handful songs that I associate strongly with the OTL experience.
From: “A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer” by Kenji Kuramitsu
A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer, from which this prayer is taken, is now available electronically.
From: “A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer” by Kenji Kuramitsu
A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer, from which this prayer is taken, is now available electronically!
By Micky ScottBey Jones
For all my activist, organizer, social justice warrior, touched-by-the-pain-in-the-world type Beloveds out there:
The air feels heavy today. So many agonizing headlines and painful hashtags it’s hard at times not to just scroll and spiral.
By Melanie Springer Mock
The opening to Katherine James’s memoir, A Prayer for Orion, is enough to leave a reader—and in particular, a reader who is also a parent—breathless. One July morning, James finds a text on her teenaged son’s phone, suggesting his purchase of heroin is imminent.
By Megan Malkemes
Oh america!
you shakespearean tragedy,
liberty’s miscarriage,
an anthology of blasphemies.