You sit across the coffee shop with a white turban, each crease folded with care, undulating like lines in the Mombasa sand at low tide. I watch you sipping espresso and fiddling with your phone, and I realize there are no enemies. Only others who are really us, but for the gap of knowing. If only we...

You might have thought that the British would have stopped colonizing the United States sometime before 1776, when fledgling American nationalists declared their independence—or at least by 1815, when the War of 1812 ended and U.S. control of the land was firmly established. But I learned recently...

I’ll be the first to admit that, all things considered, I prefer comfort to discomfort, security to insecurity. I’m not sure, however, that these are reasonable expectations, or even aspirations, for a person of faith. One of the more resonant ideas I came across while reading Jean Vanier’s...

John Wesley is said to have employed four tools in his theological work, which have come to be called the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, Reason, Tradition, Experience. Scripture, according to Wesley, is the first and final authority in any such quest for wisdom. The other three are equal seconds...

This week at Lehigh University, where I work, is Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.  On Thursday many of us in the community will be wearing t-shirts to represent our support in fighting this sad reality within our communities, country, and world.  I wanted to share the story printed on the backs...

I occasionally wonder about the damage that can be done by the careless appeal to “community.” I was, for a while, a member of a church that defined itself by community, and which defined community as “people doing life together.” This was what true friendship was meant to be: you could call...

In the summer of 2006 I took a copy of Shane Claiborne’s debut book, The Irresistible Revolution, on a family camping trip to the Nehalem River in northwest Oregon.  As we tented under a canopy of firs and cedars, my husband and I traded the book back and forth as we enjoyed our time in the forest. Claiborne...

“Empathy.” That’s what she was looking for. It was the first night of our church small group, and I had asked what people wanted out of the experience. Most of the responses were predictable, but this one stopped the conversation in its tracks. Being good, robust evangelicals, we immediately started...

Americans need room to buy stuff Americans don’t need. I read an article in last week’s New York Times Magazine about the movement to convert vacant retail space into churches, museums, libraries, schools, and other community spaces. The article’s author, Rob Walker, quoted some statistics...

We moderns live in compartments not apartments. At least this was the conclusion some friends and I joked about the other night. We are certainly an isolated people.  I contend that there is something wrong with the way we interact with our neighbors.  And we hardly see it as a problem anymore. It...