A creative collaboration between Trinity United Methodist Church and Sellwood Faith Community

I have heard and read about gaslighting.  I have been able to point it out to other folks in their lives.  I consider myself a strong person who is savvy and aware and able to claim my own agency, so it is with not a little shame that I recently...

A few days ago I found myself standing in the spring sunshine as a houseless man named John the Baptist prayed over me and our church. John had walked up to he building right as I was unlocking the door.  He told me that the Sheriff had cleared him out of...

These days so much is transitioning as we figure out what is next in this pandemic and there is a lot of pressure on decision makers.  As our Bishop and our Governor make decisions around reopening, safety protocols and more we each in our own individual lives must...

When I was 11 years old I got to attend a week of camp at Loon Lake United Methodist Camp. We built teepees to sleep in, cooked over fires, explored the woods, and learned about the beauty of God with us in creation. One of the traditions at camp was to hike up to...

Since this fall there have been a handful of Sundays where I have gotten to be in the Trinity sanctuary with other folks. It has been so lovely to have baby Leah playing in the background on her baptism Sunday, to be able to send Dan to investigate a stranger in the...

As we think about Liberation this season and contemplate God’s justice I am walking through deep thought pattern shifts about the concept of rightness. One way this is coming up for me is in my school board work.  We are contemplating changes to our real estate...

This week Lent begins. My Facebook feed is full of clergy colleagues whose hearts are breaking as they face another Lenten season preaching to a camera.  Others can’t bare to ask their people to enter into a season of suffering when we have all already suffered...

This past Saturday our leadership team gathered to do some visioning and thinking about where God is calling us. We began with the excerpt below from the Bishop's recent letter on dismantling racism: THE CHURCH IS THE PLACE… to wake up and courageously face the sin of...

I recently got an email in response to a school board issue that had in all caps the words shame on you.  It got me thinking about the powerful ways we shame and shun one another and how these ideas were part of religious practice for centuries.  For me the...

When I was in seminary I took a class called Healing and Reconciliation with Rev. Dr. Ruth Duck.  One of the things we studied in that class was the Truth and Reconciliation work being done in South Africa. This past month in the wake of the insurrection at the US...