I've got lots of things up my sleeve for 2018! I will try this year to create posts to guide you to new pieces as they come up. For right now, I'm happy to share with you all the first major piece of the year--an editorial I wrote for Christianity Today about the rise in food-based coursework at seminaries across the country.
Read MoreThis past weekend, I moved out of my home for the past three years. Here in Boston, living in the same place for three full years is nothing short of miraculous. As part of saying goodbye, I sat on my kitchen floor and processed through the bittersweet transition. It's basically a love letter to my quirky little kitchen.
Read MoreThis week Father Gregory Boyle and his friends David and Ruben travelled from Los Angeles to Boston to share the story of Homeboy Industries. Their call to fostering kinship with those on the margins by opening yourself up to be reached was just the balm I needed in the tension of the present political climate.
Read MoreI visited Garden Church, a Swedenborgian church San Pedro, California, in pouring rain. While my experience of their worship might not have been quite the norm, I was moved by our meditation on Psalm 46. It is because of communities like theirs that I have hope this Psalm's promise rings true.
Read MoreWhen Eve looked down at her naked breasts and belly and saw for the first time not the beauty of her curves or a powerful body capable of ushering life into this world, but instead the dimples of her thighs and the softness of her middle, I wonder at how crippling the shame that took hold of her mind. Fruit still in hand, juice dripping down her fingers, she had no idea that the dread she felt at the sight of her body—the sudden urge to sew a dress out of fig leaves—was a dread she would pass down to her daughters and granddaughters and generations of women and men to come.
Read MorePrinceton Theological Seminary’s 2nd annual Just Food conference opened on Thursday evening with a worship service that held together the brokenness and the freedom of tending the earth. Open our eyes to the victims of violence, to the plight of the poor, to the ones who seek justice, to the ones who seek peace, teach us compassion and love, we sang in prayer.
Read MoreIt is easy to romanticize the community-building power of the dinner table, but commensality, or the process of eating together, can also be used to maintain boundaries of difference. In my research, I sought to understand how a dinner church harnesses the positive power of commensality through the potentially divisive ritual of the Eucharist. I was particularly interested in the idea of comfort, and how feelings of comfort or discomfort affect church members involvement in and understanding of church.
Read MoreEating together is an intimate act.
Theologian and social psychologist Jean-Claude Sagne suggests that the meal develops close relationships because it promotes equality among those who otherwise might not share a similar social identity. Sociologist Georg Simmel offers that eating bonds people together in a physical and social sense because all humans share the need to eat and drink.
