Print from "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" by Kay Nielsen, 1914 Author's Note: I was so grateful and honored to be asked to give a sermon on the subject of story for the Boise Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in May 2021. I know I'm a lazy blogger, but I'm far from a lazy writer. This assignment was a gift of grace that helped me to process some ideas that have been floating around in my brain for quite a while now. I've included the reading I chose from Margaret Atwood's short story, "Happy Endings," as a preface to the sermon. In a season where we all have a chance to think ..read more

Sermon given Sunday, December 13, 2020 for Magic ValleyUnitarian Universalist Fellowship Zoom Worship Service I am so grateful to be here with you virtually today and look forward to the time when we can be together again in physical space. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts about this month’s theme: stillness. Like many of us during this year of global pandemic and tremendous change, I have begun to categorize my life into the Before Time and the Now. As some background, I’m a mother of four children (two in college, two still in high school), a wife, a community c ..read more

Ready or Not, the Future Is Now—and It Doesn’t Have to Be Dystopian Photo by bongkarn thanyakij from Pexels Many of us in higher education received emails last week about either taking our classes online or preparing to do so. If you’re anxious about the next several weeks, imagine how your students are feeling! Many of them have avoided online classes or have had a negative experience with one in the past. For context, I teach hybrid, face-to-face, and online classes in an open-access community college where many of my students are already at risk, and last week, I could smell the fear.  As ..read more

Why I went an entire year without posting to my blog Well, I mean, no one reads your blog anyway, right? A year ago today in 2018, I was fidgeting on the examination table at my ob/gyn’s office, a paper drape wrapped awkwardly around my legs. I take these women ‘s health things pretty seriously; in 2012, I was diagnosed with Stage 0 cervical cancer (or carcinoma in situ), which really isn’t as serious as it sounds, but when you’ve just lost your job and your health insurance like I had, anything with the word “cancer” can seem pretty darn scary. I had avoided the dreaded pap smear for six ye ..read more