Risk, Love, Repeat
by Emily Ralph Servant I stand in my backyard and take a deep breath, filling my lungs with cool autumn air. “Thank you,” I whisper to the trees, the grass, the purple asters, and hot pink anemone. This is God’s chesed love in action: providing just what we need, just when we need it. In a complicated … Continue reading Chesed Love is the Air We Breathe
All meaningful conversations should happen around a table filled with good food. This particular Sunday afternoon, as we laughed together and swapped stories, the conversation inevitably drifted to human sexuality. “Is this what your legacy is going to be?” I asked Loren Swartzendruber, president of Eastern Mennonite University. The university has been in the midst … Continue reading Settling into our legacy
“It used to be that we all showed up at Conference Assembly to see what we were going to argue about that year,” my friend told me. We laughed together, but I knew there was truth in her statement: our conference gatherings have not always been places for burying the hatchet or beating swords into plowshares. Continue reading The story of an overactive imagination
As we neared the park, the police officer guiding our prayer walk through the streets of Phoenix thanked Mennonite Church USA’s leaders for allowing her to participate in the event. “Many groups string out and lag behind,” she said, “But you guys stick together, you’re fit, and you’re prayerful. You’ve made my day.” Continue reading We’re fit, prayerful, and we stick together
Sitting at the kitchen table, savoring a vegetarian groundnut stew with Catherine and Michael and their two boys, I listen as they describe the racist direction of recent laws passed by the North Carolina legislature. Christians in their community have mobilized, joining weekly protests and acts of civil disobedience. The members of their small congregation in Chapel Hill continue to wrestle with their response as people of privilege in the midst of overwhelming injustice. Continue reading Taste and see