Two days before leaving for Evolving Faith, I burned myself. I was making dinner and poured the pasta water out over the sink, but I wasn’t careful. I didn’t use my oven gloves, the pot was hot and heavy and it slipped out of my hands. Boiling water splashed onto my shirt and the shirt […]
Look at the Cross Again
by on March 29, 2018 9 Comments
Let me be the first to admit today that I do not understand the cross. The simple explanations of my childhood—that the cross spans the chasm between me and God—no longer satisfy. There is so much mystery, so much that I cannot wrap my head around, that I am tempted to just quietly back away, […]
Oh God, Do You Hear Their Prayers?
by on July 13, 2017 11 Comments
By Natalie Patton | Insta: @naticakes It’s the middle of the sweltering Bangkok workday, and I’m wrestling with God in the back of a taxi on my way home from prison. I’m slipping around on hot vinyl as my theology gets pressed and squeezed like the limes at the juice stand outside my window. I’ve just visited my friend […]
On Dahlias, Joni Mitchell, and Dad
by on June 16, 2017 26 Comments
When I was 15, I found myself living in a temporary situation. I’d left home and my future looked scary. I had an apprenticeship at a hair salon, but at minimum wage, I could not afford to live on my own. I was too young, no one would let me rent a space, plus I was […]
Am I Siding with the Vulnerable?
by on January 4, 2016 20 Comments
“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” —Arundhati Roy I have come to believe that nice Christians are the greatest enemies of faithfulness. I recall a conversation I had at the predominantly white evangelical college I attended. He was an Asian American brother recounting […]
