By Irit Umani, Monday September 28 It is Yom Kippur day, 2020, and as I do each year, I use this sacred day to reflect and to commit. I woke up this morning and three words came to my mind. Courage, equanimity, compassion. The world is on fire. In California…

By Laura Hernandez Ehrisman I Go Down to the Shore I go down to the shore in the morningand depending on the hour the wavesare rolling in or moving out,and I say, oh, I am miserable,what shall—what should I do? And the sea saysin its lovely voice:Excuse me, I have…

By Sally Miller I inherited a Christmas tree skirt which was hand stitched by my mother in 1956.  I know because she stitched her initials and date into the skirt.  In 1956 I started kindergarten. The skirt was made of white wool felt.  My mother embroidered 7 sequined poinsettias which…

By Janet Davis “Our job is to look (at our children) and say, “You know what? You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” ... Brene Brown, TED talk: the Power of Vulnerability With nearly 50 million views since 2010, Brene Brown’s message…

Over the last year, I have learned that three practices help me to get unstuck: opening my mind and heart to God, being of service to others, and becoming more self-aware of the thoughts, emotions, and stories that drive me. Lately, I have been pondering about the third practice. In…

By: Doug Bell When I was a father of three young girls, they would ask me, “Daddy what is the purpose of life?” Why are we here on earth?  I always said “we are here to love others and be loved.  They accepted that, but I realized they wanted something…

By Lize Burr             Last August, I wanted to go to Ireland. I wanted to forget the way Austin feels in the summer. I imagined spending a week in a cool, green place, far from the cloudless Texas sky. I also wanted to go to Ireland because I’ve experienced a…

Dr. Amy Moenke By Amy Moehnke On the afternoon of June 7, I found myself sitting on the ground.  I was at Huston- Tillotson University among a sea of mask-covered faces listening to the lineup of speakers at that day’s Black Austin Rally and March for Black Lives.   I had…

By Joyce Palevitz I have been thinking a lot recently about what it means to observe the Sabbath. I’ve returned to some books that have guided me along the way in the past 10 years or so: Abraham Joshua Heschel’s “The Sabbath” provides grounding in Sabbath-keeping from a Jewish perspective.…

By Ellen Jockusch The highlight of my summer, from when I was age 9 to 17, was spending a week at Camp Capers, the camp of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas.  It’s hard to overstate how excited I was as it got closer to the date my parents would…