When the world is in travail, God sends a mother. In 1531 the Mexican peoples languished in the ashes of the Aztec Empire. Once-strong warriors slumped in servitude to their new Spanish overlords. Local women were frequently raped by the conquistadors during the warring years and bore children without fathers. Those mixed children struggled to […]
The First Incarnational Theologians Were Women
by on December 23, 2019 Leave a Comment
“Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” The Angel startled Mary. Her prayers cracked open with the unexpected visit. Her mind swirled with the greeting of high honor. No one, not even Joseph, called her ‘favored one.’ She forced herself to focus as the angel kept speaking. “The Holy Spirit will come upon […]
Why I Keep Returning To Palestine
by on October 23, 2019 Leave a Comment
Why do I keep returning to Palestine? Why, for the third year in a row, do I pack and board planes and change dollars into shekels? Why do I keep coming back to this place, and not Zanzibar or Paris or Morocco? I remember a conversation I had once with the then-U.S. ambassador to Burundi […]
I Remember Her as a Young Miriam
by on May 6, 2019 Leave a Comment
This past weekend, we lost a sister. Rachel Held Evans was a woman of valor. My thoughts went to Exodus—as they often do these days. // A woman stands near the reeds, holding a baby boy. She lives on the right side of the Nile, under Pharaoh’s roof and patriarchal purview. The boy cries out. […]
Liberating Hagar
by on April 8, 2019 Leave a Comment
Hagar gets the short end of the stick. Sunday School lessons describe her position as a servant, waiting hand and foot on Abraham and Sarah in Canaan. When barrenness got the best of Sarah, she eyed Hagar who was ripe for the picking. So she sent the servant into Abraham’s tent. This is how Ishmael, […]
