Is this an interruption or is it the thing?
Dear friends of Refuge, I love interruptions. But they do tend to throw my internal universe off balance. I’m not a particularly laser-focused human being anyway, so when I am focused enough to be productive, an interruption can seem like the enemy. Except that interruptions generally come in the form of people. People I happen […]
The Art of Guesting – Part 2
Last week, I wrote to you about the beauty of guesting, of just showing up. Refuge sits in a community of the most gracious hosts, so it didn’t take me long after my husband and I moved here to learn from the many visits in our neighbors’ homes that being a guest is actually one of […]
The Art of Guesting – Part 1
My husband is the caboose in his family, the youngest of four sons. He always says he never had to plan or lead anything. All he had to do was show up. I, on the other hand, am the oldest, and I’ve been acting like the matriarch-in-charge since my first sibling was born. For both […]
Remembering 9/11
“So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.” I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the horrible news broke that a plane had intentionally crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I’m sure you […]
“I lost my mind this week.”
When I texted my Afghan friend that “…this must be painfully hard,” that’s how she answered. She’s trying to get her parents out of Kabul, and she was hoping I could help. A few weeks ago, I wrote about our visit from the State Department, but I don’t have a direct line to them! Never […]
Join Us For The Refuge Coffee Run
“Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.” — Henri Nouwen And, we might add, real community is FUN. That’s why we created the Refuge Coffee Run: To remind us all that putting others first is fun. To call attention to the beauty that ensues […]
Staging a coup against the cycle of offense
Dear friends, Years ago, my husband told me I could bottle my indignation and sell it on eBay for a fortune. It was funny then, but I’m happy to say it’s less true now. Which is weird, because the more I’ve learned about the injustices of the world (and I’ve learned a lot since then), […]
Forgiveness
Last week we talked about love. This week (of all weeks!), can we also talk about one of the grittiest works of love: forgiveness? I remember reading about Corrie Ten Boom’s radical act of forgiveness when, in 1947, a former-Nazi guard from Ravensbruck, the camp where her sister Betsie died and where she suffered, approached her after […]
Deciding To Love
If you’re on social media, you’ve probably seen the phrase, “I don’t know you, but I love you.” How does that sit with you? It’s a definite improvement on “I don’t know you, but I hate you,” which I haven’t seen anywhere as a meme, but it is the basic sentiment behind most xenophobic communication. […]
If Kings and Sultans Can Do it, So Can We
Heval, Rabbi Joshua Lesser, Kitti, Gracie Moore at our “Standing With Our Muslim Neighbors event in 2019. Photo credit: Chase Moore So, a Kurdish Muslim cardiologist and a white American Christian met for coffee… sounds kind of like the beginning of a joke, right? I met my friend, Heval Kelli just as Refuge was getting […]
