Lately I've been struck at how full my life has become. Between family, friends, church, home and job as a hospital chaplain (complete with a pager that seems to go off when it's least convenient), my calendar doesn't have much white space. I am, in a word, busy. As a churchgoer, I've heard countless sermons on the dangers of being busy. But lately I'm ...

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had about three instances where someone has brought up Eve and her knack for being "easily deceived." In two of the cases, it was brought up in a way that made the people conclude that women shouldn't lead - because of this "genetic" deceivability. In the other case, it also had to do with why women shouldn't ...

With every opportunity to speak at women's ministry events, invariably the women of these churches never fail to surprise me with the many gifts and talents they have contributed to the preparations. Women's ministry teams seem to know almost innately how to pull everything together: food, décor, worship, organization and all of the other fine details that ...

In December of 1972 Helen Reddy's song "I Am Woman" grabbed the top spot on the Billboard charts. Fueled by the energy of the women's liberation movement, "I am woman, hear me roar," became a unifying slogan for a generation of women. Sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Personally, I've been a devotee of Reddy's words for many years ...

My seven-year-old son is on a freedom kick. Whenever we talk about a country (and this is often, since he and my five-year-old daughter are also on geography kicks), he'll ask: "Do they have freedom there?"

I love that he asks this. Because when the answer is "yes" it gives us an opportunity to talk about what cool things and amazing opportunities ...

I grew up in the faith while "Onward Christian Soldiers" was still regularly sung at church. However, due to the Viet Nam War, it lost its appeal as we were bombarded with the images of war on the nightly news. I learned very quickly that war is costly: two members of my church youth group were killed within months of each other.

Then, through my reading of ...

When I walk into a roomful of strangers, I engage in what is, at best, a self-imposed test in discernment; at worst a superficial gamble. I scan the women to whom I will be speaking and instinctually begin an imprecise version of memory, flipping cards in a lame attempt to match the earnestness of their smiles with the state of their souls. I do it with pretense, albeit ...

One of the most taxing things one encounters when mothering a three-year old boy is the whining: the use of an annoyingly complaining voice. One would think - and many experts assert - that if a child is never given the item for which he whines and is always required to rephrase his request politely, the behavior would eventually be extinguished. But no such luck in our ...

I’m an old pro at downsizing. It’s true.

While the rest of the world has watched recent events with anxiety at the possibility of losing their job, I’m quite familiar with this life of uncertainty. A veteran of the textile industry for 15 years, I’ve spent the last five watching the companies ...

When I was in sixth grade, a classmate told me that his dad told him that a woman could never be president because she'd "get all PMSy and probably ‘push the button' in one of her mood swings." This was in 1983, so that button she'd push was the "nuclear-war starting" button we all imagined on the big red phone next to ...