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A Fresh Start
Sometimes it’s just time, and the first of the year seems to be optimal timing for a fresh start. This is my last post on soul fabric. I am retiring the domain. For many years I worked in the web development industry but for the last five or more years, I moved away from that field and have focused almost exclusively on writing and marketing. Late last year my website went down and I had to hire GoDaddy to fix it for me. On January first, as I was preparing to export all posts from 2023 to bind into a book, it went down for a short time again and I thought ‘it’s time.’ I am a writer. It is who I am at my core. I’m not going away. Only this site is. Please find me at my new Substack site, heathersagechurch.com! See…
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The Incarnation: Sacred and Profane
One thing that lights me on fire is reading interpretations of the Bible that bring it into the context of our current lived experience. This story of Jesus’ birth, from Sacred Belonging: A 40-Day Devotional on the Liberating Heart of Scripture, does just that. It’s beautiful, breathtaking and real. Enjoy as you ponder and reflect in this season of Advent: I’ve often said that the Bible is a book written by men, for men. Throughout the centuries most of its interpreters and preachers have been men as well. It’s no surprise then, that the story of the incarnation—and its rendering and interpretations thereafter—would glide over the messy realities of pregnancy and labor. Indeed, we’re told about the politics requiring Joseph to register in his hometown, about the shepherds keeping watch, and about heavenly hosts of angels celebrating, but we hear nothing of the blood,…
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Embracing the Poet Within
We live in a world that teaches us to follow the rules. We live in a world that teaches us to trust ‘authority.’ We live in a world of propaganda. We live in a world of capitalism and of greed … I would even go so far to say that we live in an alternate reality, a matrix of sorts. We live more by the rules of the world than of God’s will. And who can blame us? It’s what we’ve been taught. It’s the water we’ve been swimming in since the establishment of this country. It’s embedded in our cells, in our DNA. And if you’re an American like me, you’ve been taught this is the greatest country in the world. I am not refuting this fact, quite the contrary. I’m thankful to live in a democratic free country. But … I also…
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Expectant Waiting
I have been in the season of Advent this year … Reading. Writing. Praying. Contemplating. Waiting — expectantly waiting. Yes, we wait patiently, expectantly this time of year. We know the story … The prophets of old tell it. Mary says ‘yes.’ Joseph says ‘yes.’ A child is born. A star guides the wise ones. The child grows up, performs wonders, shakes things up a lot, asks people to follow him, dies in a brutal and unjust way, rises to conquer death, and a movement is established in the years that follow. “What did we just witness?” the first Christians asked. They knew in their bodies that it was real … real-er than anything they’d ever experienced before. So during Advent, we’re taught to wait. We wait on Christ, his arrival in the form of a baby named Jesus. God and man as one.…
