Category: Community
Notes from the NICU: Ritual Matters
I blessed more than one dead baby this summer. When you are working as an intern chaplain on a hospital floor that includes the Labor and Delivery Unit and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), the... Read More
Making Meaning at Middlebury from the “Balagan Kadosh” (Holy Mess)
Tisha B’Av was coming. It was the beginning of July, on a fresh, hot morning in the Middlebury College Hillel. Tisha B’Av, the fast day in the Jewish calendar that commemorates the destruction of ... Read More
Holy Transformation: Visiting the Ill and New Ritual
“Thus only shall Aaron enter the Shrine… He shall be dressed in a sacral linen tunic, with linen breeches next to his flesh, and be girt with a linen sash, and he shall wear a linen turban. They a... Read More
Memorials for All? Government and Religious Expression
The issue of establishment of religion by the government is in the news again, this time dealing with a library in New Jersey. As reported here, a monument to veterans and fallen soldiers, paid for by... Read More
Theology from the Hospital Bedside
This summer, Abigail has been completing an intensive unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), an interfaith professional training for chaplaincy, at a hospital in the Los Angeles area. In her CPE p... Read More
Power, Post-structuralism, and Zombies: How a Canadian Zombie Film Helped Me Understand Violence in My Hometown
If you are into smart zombie movies (yes, there is such a thing!), I’ve got a recommendation for you: a Canadian independent film called Pontypool, complete with creepy zombies and lots of poststruc... Read More
The Folly of Donald Trump
Many conservative Christians support Donald Trump because they are sick of ‘political correctness.’ They feel that liberal elites in government, the media, and even many churches incre... Read More
Religious Identity and Inclusion
A discussion about religious identity and inclusion has to theoretically start from a perspective of exclusion. We have to understand what are the factors causing exclusion. Globalisation has disr... Read More