We are all migrants through history, on a journey together that will bring us either to destruction or to a whole new place of possibilities for humanity, the earth, and its inhabitants. The summoning of that longed-for land, with all its promise and the perils of the journey from here to there, is for every ...Read more »

We are all visitors—even when we are home. Our time in any relationship or place is ultimately limited. We are passing through; nobody stays forever. How might we act if we consider ourselves guests in the lives of friends and family? Being a good guest is rather simple in principle but occasionally challenging in practice. Read more »

When Lot welcomed in wandering angels, who were sent to see if the town of Sodom was really as wicked as its reputation, the neighbors demanded that he throw them out of his house. According to many scholars, it is because of their inhospitality to the angels that the town was destroyed. Read more »

How do you feel when you are about to head off to a party? Excited? Eager? Maybe a little bit anxious? For me, heading off into the midst of a group of people, some of whom I don’t know, always makes me a little jittery. Am I wearing the right thing? Am I bringing the ...Read more »

Descent into New York airspace is hard. … Languages crisscross from polyglot to melting pot. As the cabin pressure changes, the world shifts its weight to the other foot. Great care is required now in opening the compartments of the mind. Read more »

The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned. —Maya Angelou

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” —James Baldwin

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” —Hebrews 13:2

“Home is where one starts from.”—T.S. Eliot

“Out beyond idea of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”—Jalal ad-Din Rumi

“Perhaps home is not a place, but simply an irrevocable condition.” —James Baldwin

“Visitor’s footfalls are like medicine; they heal the sick.” —African Proverb

It always surprises me when people tell me how brave I am for being openly transgender. It doesn’t seem like bravery to me because I know how painful it was to live in the “before”… Read more »

Some of us have been able to escape the bonds of belief systems that condemn us through religious hate-speak. As an “escapee,” I offer you words of comfort: You are not an abomination. You are not flawed. You are good and worthy, and you deserve to live life in an unfragmented fashion…as well as confident that you deserve to ...Read more »

What does it mean to belong to the Earth? At present, it seems that our western culture has slowly devolved into a culture of dissociation … Read more »

The ideal of diversity meets the messiness of putting multi-racial living into practice in both our family and our spiritual homes. Read more »

Over the years, we learned that gender too was one of the seeds that would only emerge in time. How beautiful it has been to watch as our beloved child has bloomed, in gender and identity and expression. Read more »

Well-meaning people explain that it doesn’t matter what religion I choose, but I must choose, and only one. Only then, they say, can I go truly deep into a religion. Read more »