I do not own a robe
I do not own a robe. Well, perhaps that is not entirely accurate. I did purchase a clerical robe just before Christmas, a woman’s robe off the rack at Cokesbury that doesn’t […]
Hard to Negotiate
Along with Advent comes salary-negotiating time here in the Merritt house, my least favorite part of the year. Honestly, I hate it. I wish that everyone just got paid from the Local Governing […]
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Most women of the Friends generation have endured, at least once, that excruciating rite of passage known as The Break-Up. There are three general types of break-ups: The Amicable Break-Up: The two […]
Congregational Interviewing 101 (Or What You Should Know About Parish Interviewing but No One Tells You… Or What I Wish I had Known a Few Years Ago)
Ah, the call process. What an idyllic, prayerful time, characterized by careful consideration of congregations and clergy alike, with everyone putting aside worldly concerns to discern the will of the Triune God. […]
Taming the Busyness: Getting Organized and Staying That Way
Ministry is a high calling: a cliché, but also true. We have the joy and privilege of being present at the milestone events of life—births, weddings, deaths—what some of us […]
The Fake Search
Recently, at a local governing board meeting, the chair of a search committee presented his candidate before the governing body with the words, “We really did have a real search.” I sat back in […]
Whose Hair Is It, Anyway?
Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it […]
Sibling Rivalry
As an only child, I never really understood the whole issue of sibling rivalry. I grew up with my own room. My toys were safe from the hands of younger siblings who might […]
What Did She Just Say?
As the below true-life examples illustrate, I’ve been known to let faux curse words slip in my sermons on more than one occasion: “The disciples had been fishing all day, and […]
What Not to Wear
I love Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her books, loosely autobiographical—about a young girl who explored the West with her pioneer family—were the basis for games my friends would play during every 2nd and […]
