I have decided to approach the General Ordination Examination the same way I approached childbirth. I remember being in my ninth month of pregnancy, thinking to myself, “Wait a minute……

A couple of weeks ago, I visited some people at Harvard Divinity School, and I was reading the web site directions for finding the Divinity School as I walked alongside…

There seem to be two favorite pastimes of seminarians at the beginning of Advent: 1) expressing disdain for all the materialistic people and corporations who are misappropriating the birth of…

Singing Hebrew songs in a conservative synagogue in Boston only hours after learning of the death of my friend, mentor, spiritual director, and sponsoring rector Marcia (Mar-SEE-ya) Engblom might seem…

I have had a topsy-turvy start to my third and last year of seminary, and here’s why: I was returning from Northern California to New Haven, thinking about how much…

I have spent this past week in one of the rites of passage for Episcopal seminarians: meeting with diocesan committees who are considering whether to recommend me for candidacy, a…

I find biomechanics fascinating. They are more fascinating to me when someone else is having a biomechanical problem, not me, but the fact is that I have become intimately acquainted…

You might not think that attending a funeral is a great way to end a retreat, but–surprise, surprise! It was. How did I end up attending a funeral at the…

The famous battle cry “Retreat!” is an excellent name for the spiritual practice of leaving one’s environment and taking time out for prayer, rest, and renewal. It’s an excellent name…

I had a change of plans this summer–well, more than one–that caused some Franciscan stirrings. When last I wrote, I was taking Latin this summer. But avid readers know that,…

For at least 6 six years, I have heard people say that the Church is dying. “The Church is going to hell in a handbasket,” one Episcopal priest in California…