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Guided by Faith, not Fear
People are always surprised when I tell them one of my biggest fears is public speaking. I get very anxious before I preach—just ask my husband. And, of course, the bigger the audience, the bigger my fear. You should have seen me before preaching at our college’s Baccalaureate Service last May. I was a wreck.…
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Interested in Publishing?
Just a quick post this week for those interested in writing and publishing. I discovered, Allison K. Williams’ book Get Published in Literary Magazines: The Indispensable Guide to Preparing, Submitting…and Writing Better through the Brevity magazine’s blog last week. It looked great, so I ordered it and promptly devoured the book this week—reading in every spare moment.…
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The People Who Shape Us
I am in the process of hiring a new Associate Chaplain to work with me at the college. As this search progresses I keep recalling my first call as an Associate Pastor. After some painful internship experiences in seminary where I learned that not all pastoral placements are healthy, I wasn’t looking so much for…
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Intentionally Blank
In an article from The Write Practice, Jeff Elkins offers tips on how to find your “Thoughtful Spot.” This is a trick, Elkins writes, that he learned from Winnie the Pooh. “His Thoughtful Spot was a log under a tree marked by a sign that read, ‘Pooh’s thotful spot.’ It was the place where Pooh…
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Good Habits
When I am too busy or too tired at night to read, I rely on podcasts to take in content that will keep me thinking and creating. Last night, I was so exhausted after a week of opening activities at my college that I was tempted to go to bed along with my kids at…
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Is the hard work worth it?
Our seven-year-old daughter has been learning to play the cello for the past two years. We are fortunate to have a Suzuki cello teacher at our college who makes learning music fun. But Ella still has to practice every day, even when she doesn’t want to. Being good at something like music takes persistent, hard…
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Welcome to March with King
For the past three years I have sent or accompanied students to an Interfaith Leadership Institute in Chicago led by Eboo Patel’s Interfaith Youth Core. As the Chaplain of a religiously diverse college, I am passionate about fighting rampant Islamophobia and fear of the “other” through positive experiences of interfaith cooperation. But I questioned whether…
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Hell Bent to Persuade: Donald Trump’s Choice of Fear as a Political Tool
When I served as the pastor of a Presbyterian church down South, I learned of an event common for local Baptists on Halloween. Instead of a Haunted House, these churches would sponsor a Hell House and invite children and youth of the community to go through. It was scary, and kids like scary at Halloween.…
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Backyard Adventures
A couple of years ago my kids and I made a frightening discovery in our backyard. I wrote the story up as a flash essay and am excited that Mamalode decided to publish it. Follow the link to read, It’s the Yard that Makes our House a Home.
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Jesus Cleanses the Temple: A Contemporary Retelling
My husband, the Rev. Dr. Daniel J. Ott, just wrote this contemporary retelling of Mark 11: 15-18 for his sermon this coming Sunday. What an important text for what is going on in our society today. Thanks to Dan for giving me permission to share. “Today an indigent man shocked the community when he staged…
Teri McDowell Ott 