Suprapto and his wife Kartini were Javanese Christians who moved into a neighborhood in Jakarta where all of the other residents were followers of Indonesia’s majority religion. Wanting to become friends with her neighbors, Kartini baked cakes and took them to the families on either side of their tiny house. But their gifts were thrown […]

As an ordained pastor in The United Methodist Church, I am today a pastor without a pulpit. I serve in a judicatory role, covering the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area, which includes ministries across Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and even a small part of Canada. This means that while I lack a pulpit, I nevertheless have […]

I certainly wasn’t the only person thinking about this question during the recent federal government partial shutdown. More than 400,000 federal workers were ordered to work, but weren’t being paid. For many of us, it seemed absurd that someone would choose, day after day, to go to work with no paycheck in sight. And yet […]

What is love? According to emotions researcher Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, love is a very human feeling. An emotion. It is unique in that of all the positive emotions, love is manifested between people. So unlike joy, pleasure, or excitement — love is a shared feeling, existing in the invisible emotional tendrils that connect one person […]

How many times have you woken up in the morning and felt excited to interact with people, whether they are your friends, colleagues, or strangers on the street? How many times have you felt the complete opposite – not wanting any human interaction at all and avoiding all possible instances of someone striking up a […]

While efforts to counter Islamophobia have proliferated since 9/11, by most metrics, Islamophobia is getting worse. Anti-Muslim hate crimes in the past two years are among the highest ever. Over a dozen states have passed anti-sharia legislation. President Trump won the presidency by promising a Muslim ban (and delivering on that promise) and by flirting […]

When people ask me what I do, I always run into a bit of trouble.  Some parts of my professional identity are straightforward: Writer.  Teacher. But then there’s the bit about PAAC that I never know quite how to explain.  It’s not a church. It’s not a non-profit (yet, at least). It’s an… online community? […]

We could see each other through the fence. We could hear each other’s cheers, singing and shouted greetings. We were north and south of a border created by money, politics and blood. ++++++++ “The basic problem is not political, it is a-political and human. One of the most important things to do is to keep […]

“All movements, however different in doctrine and aspiration, draw their early adherents from the same types of humanity; they all appeal to the same types of mind:…the frustrated mind.” For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting […]

Recently, as I was looking through some old family files, I found my certificate of baptism given when I was just a toddler. Issued from the Presbyterian church in which I grew up, it was a simple declaration that I belonged to the church, to God in Christ, and that the community was committed to […]