This day - this day between the burial and the resurrection - this day where lingering hope must have felt stifled, where unanswered questions overwhelmed, where darkness seemed to envelop, where life must have stilled, where grief dominated and silence was impenetrable. Last night, our Good Friday service walked through the final words of Christ [...]
Category: lessons from the journey
No Longer Outside the Wall
a Holy Week devotional adapted from a homily I presented at my church on Maundy Thursday 2013... Each year of my childhood, my church would offer a Maundy Thursday service where they also held the traditional Jewish Seder meal in celebration of Passover. Honestly I tried to concoct many clever excuses in my early years [...]
Sierra Leone – on story and song
Tayll Ahm Taynkee, Tayll Ahm. Tayll Papa Gohd Taynkee. What He Do Fah Me, I Go Tayll Ahm Taynkee. Only a few short weeks ago, I was sitting with my family in a dusty room with faded paint, which could not contain life and hope from radiating inside its walls. It was here, in this [...]
on darkness and sunrise
As with most of us, my heart is full and cannot shake the shocking and overwhelming news of the Newtown shootings last week. Such darkness. So many unanswered questions. And every single day in the news, there are more devastations from around the globe of atrocities my brain cannot quite grasp. And I look around [...]
dress down your pretty faith
Over the past few months, and especially within the last week, a specific theme has been driving the undercurrent of my thoughts, woven in songs and books and class discussions and dialogues with friends... revealing a greater depth through each new medium, yet pulsing with the same beat. Perhaps Sara Groves (to no surprise) sums [...]
Israel, continued…
It's been a while since I have braved these pages. Upon returning from Israel, I jumped right back into jobs and seminary and to-dos, and time has raced past without me realizing that it has been far too long since the last post! I am finishing processing the trip on these pages, but this particular day [...]
January 3, 2012 – Bet She’an, Mount Nebo
The morning brought with it abundant and life-giving sunshine as well as one of my favorite sites of ancient ruins thus far - Bet She'an. Our group somehow had a stolen hour to ourselves in this fascinating ancient city which lies at the junction of the Valley of Jezreel and the Jordan River Valley. And [...]
January 2, 2012 – Caesarea Philippi, Sea of Galilee, Mount of Beatitudes, Jordan River baptisms
Perhaps it's the fact that a decent night of sleep accompanied me last night for the first time in quite a while, or that coffee is finding its way into my daily life here more often than usual - but this morning brought with it an awakening for me, allowing me to be truly present [...]
Stones of Remembrance
The new journal is purchased - a must for any of my trips - and promise seems to fill me as I leaf through the pages that will soon be filled with unforseen struggle and hopes fulfilled, joys, tears, questions, passion, prayers, aches, revelation, deepening, etc. And yet, there is a piece of me that [...]
jenn crider 