AN UNLIKELY CANDIDATE I am the most unlikely candidate of all. I could never capture in words the profound inner experience I am having in regard to this pandemic. I feel as if I am being revealed at the deepest level. Every day a new insight arises that knocks me for a loop. And that has been my prayer from the very onset. In mid-March, when America started being directly impacted by Covid-19, I had already been anticipating that something profound was stirring in the collective consciousness. I had been sensing that a grand reckoning was going to unfold at the global level. It seemed clear to me that the way in which humanity had been living and treating our earth and each other was no longer

TMI There truly is such a thing as too much information. In an age of social media I have experienced TMI in ever-increasing frequency. People post things online that they would almost never share in face to face interaction. There is a kind of false bravery that breeds permission to say things that are revelatory yet often hurtful in some fashion. It does, however, reveal parts of people that lie below the physical proximity pretense. I have often suspected that behind the polite smile lurks a shadow awaiting exposure. And social media is the perfect platform for such an unmasking. Too much information. There is another phrase in our vernacular that I find to be stunningly true. “You can’t unsee that.” Put those two perceptions together and

ILLOGICAL LOVE The great loves of my life have almost all been illogical. They were relationships that had I listened to my head I would have talked myself out of. I guess that is the nature of true and lasting love. Love does not make sense. At least it does not for me. The most significant people in my life have arrived in surprising ways and remained despite the odds being against them. The really great loves have had an element of mystery around them. They have all been unanticipated surprises. When the love really landed, I stepped back from each with a sense of “I didn’t see that coming.” I believe that is what made them the really great loves. I would have never dreamed that

EVERYONE DESERVES A MARY It ended the way it began. No one could point an index finger quite like Mary. I met her in a small coffee shop across the way from the spiritual center in which I was then employed. I entered midmorning to get a cup of tea and was cheerily greeted by name by the owner and barista. A small yet mighty woman stepped out from behind a bookcase and asked of me” so you are Taylor?” I replied in the affirmative. “You are the reason I moved here.” After a brief explanatory conversation, she pointed her index finger right at me and declared “you should teach a class on The Seven Spiritual Laws.” I took a moment or two to stare down the

A MATTER OF TRUST It has become painfully clear to me that I taught myself not to trust myself. I grew up in a home where we were not allowed to have our own opinions. Self-referral was not encouraged or even allowed. Parental opinion was law. And so, my parents would proclaim something to be true or right or just. The proclamations frequently landed heavily in my solar plexus, and I knew deeply that what was being stated was not true. At least not for me. And so, I would question. >br> And my questions landed heavily inside my parents. Then they landed heavily on me. The same was true in schools, church, and various organizations in which I became affiliated. Doctrine was declared. It did not

I wish I had gotten madder, sooner. I grew up in a family in which anger was unacceptable. With a mother prone to rage and a father with dementia-related outbursts the context was at best confounding. There was a small and constricting zone of what was acceptable to feel and express. Anger was outside of that zone. So, not being allowed to be angry really pissed me off. I became masterful at suppressing that concentric anger. At school we were punished if we displayed anger. At church we were taught that the Righteous do not get mad. If they did, an angry and wrathful God would cast you into hell. What? Those teachings really ticked me off. I graduated school and church and began to forge my

TAKING A KNEE I saw it only briefly, yet I cannot get the image out of my mind. I guess I am not meant to get it out my mind. Or out of my heart. His name was George Floyd. He was not another black man being murdered. He was not a statistic. He was a man with a name and a history and a family and a future. Except that future was taken away. Brutally. Violently. Senselessly. Shamefully. Amid disempowered bystanders crying for mercy for the suffocating man. George Floyd. The image of that white officers knee firmly in place on George Floyd's neck haunts me. I cannot get it out of my mind. I guess I am not supposed to. What do I do with

HORSES, WATER, AND SACRED SERVICE “You can lead a horse to water…” Well, you know the rest. I was never easily led to water, or anywhere else for that matter. I have always been cautious about what the water had really done for the one seeking to lead me. If it appeared that the proverbial water had done something beneficial for you, I may well follow you and take a drink. If you speak about the water as being helpful in one way, yet how you live exhibits something entirely different, I am not interested in being led. Not by you. Not by anyone. It does not matter how many others may be sipping or gulping. I want to literally test the waters before I will follow

Who is Dying? I’m dying. I am not. That distinction has set me free. In a time of veracious global illness and vast dying there is an invitation to open into the inescapable truth that I’m dying. Most likely not today. In all probability not anytime soon. And yet even that is questionable. The only thing that is beyond question is that it will happen. Equally beyond question is that I am will never die. There is a tension of sorts between those two unquestionable truths. One day the who of me will release its final exhalation and this incarnation will be ended. The what of I am will remain unaffected. The what may well carry on becoming another who. Unlearned lessons will move with that final

JOGGING WHILE BLACK I guess it is the price you pay for jogging while black. I am not in any way making a joke. I at first felt as if typing those words was making me sick. Then I realized I was typing the words from a deep sick feeling down inside of me. News reposts tell me that a young black man was hunted and gunned down for basically being black. For jogging while being black. How could that be? When I was in my early teens a high school senior in my home congregation decided to bring a friend of hers to church. I recall vividly looking down the hallway as Jennifer and her friend approached from the opposite end of the hall. It is