I don’t remember the first time it happened. I don’t remember the first time it happened, but this, this day is clearly solidified in my mind. I was 27, and grieving the separation from my then spouse. As happens, my grief and anger were spilling out in a…

I can remember so clearly the first time someone said it. I said: I use the word queer to define myself. They said: I could never call you that! Queer is a bad word! I won’t use a slur to identify you. It’s a well-intentioned response, but one that misses…

It was o’dark thirty on a March morning when I finally emerged from my Covid bubble after almost thirteen months of isolation. On March 12, 2020, I boarded my last, pre-pandemic flight home from an abbreviated vacation with my spouse. The following day, I became symptomatic for Covid-19. …

Hey Church, it’s time for us to have a check-in, ok? All y’all out there who are part of the Body of Christ, and especially clergy colleagues. It’s Ash Wednesday this week. The start of Lent. Of our 40 days in the wilderness. Our season of prayer and fasting. It’s…

I am no stranger to therapy. I’ve been in therapy on and off since I was eighteen. My therapists have been a series of incredible, skilled women. First, there was the young, compassionate, funny, engaging redhead who skillfully navigated me through long-delayed grief over my father’s death. Then, the incomparably…

Slow Down Where it Hurts: Grief and the Twelve Days of Christmas Thirteen years ago this year, on December 23rd, I made last-minute plans to fly home to Upstate NY on the busiest travel day of the year. One leg of my flight canceled. I got rerouted through LGA. I…

Today marks my fifth anniversary of ordination to ministry. I have been called to ministry for over half of my life. I can hardly remember a life in which this thing that has pulled me, and shaped my heart for so long did not have a grip on me. While…

“Why does it feel like they hate me?” I asked. “It’s Femmephobia,” she replied. “It’s rooted in the idea that all Femmes are vapid and self-centered.” — And there it was. I had spent days trying to figure out how to let go of an exchange that had left me feeling bruised, and tender. I couldn’t figure out why it got under my skin so deeply, and there it was. …

When I was doing my clinical training in a major, Level I trauma center in Boston, I remember acutely a day that I broke down sobbing. I felt like I was simply immersed in death. One of my dearest patients had finally died, and I had a heavy case load. …