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Essays by 2021-22 Emerging Writers
Salvation Through Covenant
January 9, 2023Through the practice of covenant, Ellen Spero's Unitarian Universalist church form a community in a building first occupied by Puritans, where almost everything has changed but a commitment to walking together in God's love and grace.Read more »What God Has Ordained
January 5, 2023Discerning God's call to pastoring or other ministry is an ongoing process, not a one-time thing. It includes mentors but also attention to one's heart's desire.Read more »Recognizing Holy Moments
January 2, 2023Ignatian spirituality teaches that in order to see God’s presence in the world, we must be disposed to the world that we live in—the world in front of us.Read more »Paw Washing
December 19, 2022To stoop and wash the feet of another is an astounding act of love. To have your feet washed is a profound moment of vulnerability. Marriage, in a nutshell. Dog ownership too, it turns out.Read more »Psalm 17: A Prayer for Asian Americans
December 12, 2022"I had seen blatantly hateful acts committed against Asian Americans all my life, but never so many, so fast, and so creative with their hatred."Read more »The Foolish Hope of a Good Power
July 11, 2022"Good Power" is forged from vulnerability and safe spaces, vulnerability met with love and support, and good power raises up leaders who do the same.Read more »On the sacred space of bathrooms for queer and trans folks
June 23, 2022All anyone really wants in a bathroom is some privacy. But Kai Ngu also found bathrooms a good place to think, and shares some thoughts here.Read more »A Bitter Pill
June 20, 2022Natarsha Sanders recounts her battle to accept a difficult diagnosis, and to get the necessary treatment. Love and medicine get her there.Read more »Postcolonial Faith: Grappling with the Legacy of Missionaries in my Family
April 4, 2022Kai (Sarah) Ngu considers the legacy of their family's relationship with an American missionary and how Christianity contributes to their parents' ongoing feelings of racial inferiority.Read more »When Overachieving No Longer Satisfies
March 24, 2022To exchange the “ideal overachiever” title assigned to me for the “sacred human” title chosen by the God who created me, something needed to change.Read more »
Essays by 2020-21 Emerging Writers
To Kneel in the Soil: Responding to a Climate Generation in Crisis
June 3, 2021How do we answer children's fears about the ongoing climate crisis? Maybe the best we can do is engaging them with living soil.Read more »Reggae Lament
May 31, 2021For J. Jioni Palmer, reggae often loosens up emotions, providing an opportunity for spiritual lament in a genre known for its optimism and uplift.Read more »Living Faith in Stereo
May 20, 2021"The Lenten practice of looking with complexity continues to sustain our beautiful, terrible lives, to ground our hope in the pockets of possibilities for the world as it could be, and to make possible the art of living faith in stereo."Read more »The Devil Advises Me and Other Young White Clergy
March 4, 2021Tweak your sermon. Update the church website. Dust your divinity school diploma. Do more self-care. And most of all, get serious.Read more »For the Love of God and Family
February 22, 2021Being the Black father of Black boys in America today means more than giving "the talk." The threat of gun violence from many sources brought this father to a heartbreaking decision.Read more »