Let me begin with the story of two Rhodes Scholars. One is named William Jefferson Clinton. He went to Georgetown University on scholarship, Oxford on the Rhodes Scholarship, and Yale Law School. He served as the 40th and 42nd Governor of Arkansas and before that was Arkansas’ Attorney General.

On the second Sunday of Advent we anticipate and celebrate the promise that Jesus, the Prince of Peace, has come to bring peace into the world. In the face of so much hubris, greed, polarization, division, and war around the globe, the promise of peace might seem a distant and elusive dream.

Outside my office window there is a stunning tree. Burnt-red, tall and thick, deep blue sky behind it, and on either side trees still bright green.

Twenty-five-year-old noblewoman Anne Askew (1521–1546) was accused of heresy, arrested, interrogated at least twice, tortured on the rack, and burned alive at the stake.

I was raised in a church and family that encouraged women to be all that they were meant to be.

In Churchland there is a natural tendency to look to churches that appear successful, hoping to learn from or emulate what they are doing in our own communities.

When my children were young, Valentine’s Day was hugely exciting. We made cookies with pink icing in heart shapes.

In my first year of graduate studies at Yale University, I was asked to be a teaching assistant in a course that allowed for “the yeah, yeah experience” to arise.