When I was 18, I had a list of questions.  Although they seem a little silly to me now, these questions routinely provoked a passionate response from the self-identified Christians at my high school.  How did the sons of Adam and Eve find wives?  How could a wooden boat (built with bronze-age tools) sustain two of every creature on the planet?  Could God make a rock that is too heavy for God to lift?  Time... [more]

It began when my son came out as Gay during his senior year in high school.  My husband quit talking to him, although living in the same house. That only increased my commitment to support him–I loved this creative, sensitive, and gifted son.    I began learning from friends, books, and movies about LGBT issues and culture.  I helped where I could as my son found his new community and went off to college.  I feared... [more]

Years ago, in a troubled time when I was blind and lost and didn’t know how to navigate, God blessed me with a powerful experience that lasted for several days.  During that time, I could feel Jesus’ presence and his love for me.  This was the first time since I was a young child that I had experienced Jesus’ Presence, and it would be five years before I experienced his Presence again.   The experience... [more]

I want to Serve God.  Seeking validation of this goal, I’ve often volunteered to do whatever hard job arose, the ones nobody else would do, whatever someone else asked me—disregarding what the Light might be calling me to do.   I stayed up late making up for my lost time. When I finally got to bed, I couldn’t sleep. My husband christened me The Queen of Insomnia. I’m working on losing that title.  The Light... [more]

One morning in Meeting for Worship, I was powerfully blessed by a sudden shift in self-perception.   I’d been worrying about an encounter that I expected to have in the coming week, and as it played out in my imagination, it went badly.  The encounter as I imagined it left me feeling like a failure, ashamed and inadequate.  Suddenly, I received a powerful insight:  in the imaginary encounter, I had been seeing my mother, not myself!... [more]

When I arrived at WHF in 1994 my faith was in tatters.  No, that’s too optimistic.  My faith was ground into dust.  I not only didn’t believe any of the Christian theology that had filled and satisfied my life, but I doubted God’s very existence, or at the least God’s goodness   My husband wanted a faith community, so I went along, week after week, faithfully yet faithless.  It was hard, with Friends around me... [more]

At West Hills’ annual all church retreat this spring (2014), I had the extreme pleasure of sitting next to Erica and Graci Huber during our final meeting together for music and worship sharing. During the songs, I experienced a silent connection via my secret observations of Erica with her 19 year old daughter, Graci.  Graci sat with her legs flung over her mother’s lap. Erica held her lovingly, much in the same way that I... [more]

When the change came I felt it in my back, in the lightening of a burden I had forgotten I bore.   I shifted my shoulders to re-balance my life and gazed around me, questioning my belonging here,   then, standing straighter, I breathed my first breath of a new season, and I stepped gently ahead into the garden of my future.   Weeds were there, some I had fought for years of my living.... [more]

I’ve told this story before (Minding the Light, July 2011) but I have been encouraged to tell it again from the perspective of the current query.  From around the age of 12 (or maybe younger) until the age of 61, I was frequently visited by sudden, unexpected states of altered consciousness that terrified me and played havoc on my social life and sense of well-being. From lack of any better point of reference I turned... [more]