Grace Mills River

This season may be the closest thing most of us will ever know about what exile feels like: Life interrupted, a feeling of disorientation and dislocation, separated, if not from place, not a little from peace. To whatever extent we...

In many vocations employees undergo “performance reviews”--comprehensive evaluations of their effectiveness. The most helpful ones take time to look beneath the surface to identify more than practices, but easily unnoticeable assumptions and motives...

When words like division and polarization feel more like the rule than the exception, to even bring up a word like “unity” is likely to elicit something between amusement and cynicism. But what this brief, vivid Psalm sings to us--dares us to sing and...

No one wants to be misunderstood. They would hope others would take them on their own terms and not create them in their own image. The same goes for God. Not because He is diminished by our misunderstanding, but because we are. We can learn much...

When a comedian once chided “why is everything awesome but nobody’s happy?” he put his finger on one of the most desirable but elusive things we might seek--namely, contentment. Why are we so easily burdened, ungrateful, perturbed, or worse? Is there...

It is the experience of every human alive to feel and face regret. Something we’ve said or done does damage and we wonder if the damage is irreparable. We also shudder at what our capacity to act that way says about us in some deep way. The Psalms of...

We know that love, patience, and self control are, to name a few, fruit of the Spirit. So when we see in the Psalms prayers asking for judgment upon enemies, we wonder if we've happened upon a contradiction. This Psalm is known as one of the...

Our english word “fear” usually implies terror. But when we read it in scripture it has far more nuance--so much so that we find that what it means is the basis for blessing. What is this fear? What blessings accompany it? How does it find a place in...

Psalm 127 is a song about what gives our work meaning. When we’re mindful of God’s work as we go about daily life, in the office or with our families, we won’t labor in vain; when we connect Sunday to Monday we flourish.

Faith is not optimism. It looks back and remembers reasons for looking forward with hope. What sits on the page here in the Psalm though has abundant implications for our common life ahead. Right now--in real-time.