In my sophomore year of college, I wrote a poem. Though I had no idea how to go about doing this, I composed a page and half of hifalutin mumbo jumbo that I was quite proud of and eager to show one of my teachers. He asked me to read the poem out loud to…

Sh’ma yisrael Adonai Elohanu Adonai echad—Hear O’ Israel the Lord is God, the Lord is one. Even an assimilated, lip-syncing Jew like my father knew those six words of Judaism’s signature prayer—a prayer tucked into Jewish liturgy morning, noon, and night. When I was little, my faith was confined to saying the Sh’ma. For as…

If you go to any restaurant nowadays, you’ll likely see something that at one time would’ve been considered absurd: People whipping out their smartphones, taking pictures of their food, then forwarding said photograph to their friends, families, followers, catfishes, and Craigslist Killers all over creation through a variety of social media. “Suckling Duckling with Béarnaise…

My six-year-old son caught me off guard. “I wish we had a backyard,” he said one afternoon. He had been playing more or less quietly with his Legos, and I was enjoying a book. “Oh, yeah?” I responded. “Why is that?” “Then we could just play outside and you wouldn’t have to watch us,” he…

Another campaign season is upon us with a vengeance. Actually it’s campaign seasons—since the U.S. presidential campaign goes on for over two years. That’s summer, fall, winter, spring, summer, fall, winter, spring, summer, and the final (gasp) fall. As for vengeance, this seems to increase with every four-year cycle. Could there possibly be more vengefulness…

When my husband and I were in the very early stages of our relationship, we both hid from each other that we used tobacco. He chewed. I smoked. But we’d been set up because both of our families were churchy. He thought I was a pious Catholic girl who might be turned off by his…

I don’t mean to brag, but I attend your ideal church. If you’re a millennial or a 30-something interested in social justice and dissatisfied with your tradition, your suburban congregation, or your mega-church, and feeling a bit None-ish, then I have the church for you. What’s on your list of descriptors for the perfect congregation,…

Continued from a previous post. Read part 1 here.  After my wife Katie and I decided to get matching tattoos, we spent months pinning designs and discussing placement, and—let’s be honest—fighting over pretty much every detail. It probably had been easier to choose our children’s names. We’re a stubborn and volatile couple, so there was…

He was born with cerebral palsy and he has it all the way up until he is completely underwater, when, he says, his whole body is pleasantly different, his limbs smooth and loose and elegant. I hold him under his arms in the pool and he can walk and tell me everything. He takes three…

When I come to the end of my days, what shall I say I know of life in this world? And what shall God say, when the world comes to the end of days, that God has come to know of life in this one of all created worlds? Carolina chickadee, Kafka, vocoder.    I…