Sher Gerber
Tending Sacred Spaces
Author: shergerber
-
Still Wandering
Perhaps at this mid-point in Lent, you are weary of hearing of deserts and fasting; enough with mortality, death, temptation and testing. Let’s get to the celebration; let’s get to Easter. But we cannot rush through the dry places. We cannot hurry the journey through the wilderness. As we know from our experiences, growth never…
-
Into the Wilderness
Just like your life is organized around different rhythms—the seasons, the rotation of months, the school year—so, too, the life of the church follows a cycle of rituals and celebrations. Following the excesses of Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday comes with its invitation to remember our mortality. While our contemporary culture encourages us to live in…
-
(Changes) Around the Table
Some time ago, I came across this beautiful poem by poet laureate Joy Harjo entitled “Perhaps the World Ends Here” (you can read the full poem here) It begins: The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the…
-
Lenten Retreat
In one week, Christians around the world will receive the imposition of ashes as part of the liturgy and remembrance of Ash Wednesday. This begins the liturgical season of Lent. Lent is a season where we give up something to make more space It is about seeing more clearly. Listening more closely. Seeking after God…
-
On the Threshold…
The change of seasons, liminal spaces and being on the threshold– all of these transitional moments are opportunities for reflection, reassessment and reconnection. Next week begins the liturgical season of Lent; this is a time in the church year that commemorates Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness and that we use to prepare our hearts…
-
Book Review: Singleness and Marriage After Christendom
I’ve got a few projects in the works and some changes are on the way (more about all that soon!), but I am honoring my commitment to Speakeasy and these authors in sharing reviews of their work. This will be the last of my Speakeasy book reviews. “…Our current desires and our ideas about happiness…
-
Book Review: You’ve Got the Power**
The first time I got a migraine headache, I ended up in the emergency room. I had laid down after lunch because I was feeling so unwell in a variety of ways, but when my vision went funny, I asked my husband to take me to the hospital. After some hours of testing and waiting,…
-
A Shoot from the Stump: The Good News of Christmas
We often talk about the gospel message– the teachings of Jesus and the salvation that is made known through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus– as Good News. Those words are familiar as they are announced by the angel to the shepherds in Luke’s accounting of Jesus’ birth: “I am bringing good news of…
-
Preparing for Christmas…
“Often when we are in a period of discernment our hearts become noisy with choices and possibilities. We try to think our way through things to an outcome. We create lists of pros and cons. These can sometimes be helpful but they encourage us to whittle our life choices down to tangibles, when ofen what…
-
Into the Mess: Book Review
Written in short reflections on pericipes of scripture, I had intended to savor Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories devotionally, reading one per day. But, I was so drawn in and moved by Debie Thomas’s reflections that I devoured this book in an evening. Much like a simple turn of the diamond, Thomas takes…