A Cultural & Spiritual Transformation

A week or so ago, I attended a presentation a colleague of mine gave on a grant project she will be leading in the next three years, on environmental education with the Maasai, using the system of Lutheran schools and confirmation classes. It is a great project, with the following components: Decolonizing climate science messaging…… Continue reading A Cultural & Spiritual Transformation

Creation as our Prayer Shawl

Like many churches and other Christian organizations, Wartburg Seminary has a little prayer shawl ministry. People in our community knit or crochet beautiful, soft shawls that are then given to others who request them. What is unique about them, of course, is revealed in the name. What differentiates a prayer shawl from any other wrap…… Continue reading Creation as our Prayer Shawl

Ash Wednesday & (Cosmic) Dust

It was a very fortuitous circumstance that today, Ash Wednesday, my feminist theologies class was finishing up Ask the Beasts, by Elizabeth Johnson. This is a lyrical, prophetic text, in which Johnson makes a compelling argument that care for creation belongs at the heart of Christian faith, and that God Herself is deeply present in…… Continue reading Ash Wednesday & (Cosmic) Dust

Who Do You Say that I Am?

No, this post is not about Jesus’ identity, but about the identity of roughly 1.4 million Americans who identify as transgender.  The story broke on Sunday that the Trump administration is seeking to more narrowly define gender as something immutable and unchangeable, determined exclusively and definitively by genitalia at birth.  [Read about it here:  Transgender Could…… Continue reading Who Do You Say that I Am?