Blog

On Waste and wasting: Today is trash day on my street.  I look at the heaps of waste we all push to the edge of our yards for the trucks to haul away next to blue boxes piled high with recycling and I think about how very much we throw away. How much I have continue reading »

Here is what’s been going on with me, my family and our shopping fast aka a year without shopping: I am still noticing the faded, worn and out of date things in my wardrobe, on my shoe rack and in my home.  I wonder as I do if I notice more because I cannot replace continue reading »

An update on my year without shopping  . . . The power cord conundrum So just some context for this story:  My family has agreed to do the shopping fast with me for the first six months. I was standing in the kitchen talking to my family when a shiny new i-phone power cord caught continue reading »

Here is our intern Melanie Yong’s reflection on last week’s Micah 6:8 Launch: On a cold Sunday morning in March, the Boston Faith & Justice Organization launched our first Service Learning program in partnership with Salvation Army in Malden, MA. It has been a project that we have talked about for months and deliberated over continue reading »

My year without shopping has begun.   When I brought the idea of not buying anything for a year to my family my twelve-year-old daughter literally said “this is the worst thing that has happened to me in my whole life . . .”  She really likes shopping.  Like a lot. Much to my chagrin.  continue reading »

Happy new year.  2017 was  . . . so many things.  Full of change, turmoil, natural disaster, political upheaval. One thing about the turning of the calendar’s page is that it brings a sense of newness.  The idea that we have a clean slate of sorts.  Which is probably why so many people make resolutions continue reading »

Tis the season . . . As we begin the advent season the world around us seems determined to make us think about everything but the coming of Jesus.  Determined to distract us from the waiting, the anticipation, the joy, the peace and the salvation that His arrival means for the world. Whether it’s black continue reading »

As I walk past aisle after aisle of the cold section in my local supermarket, checking the different cuts, parts and fat percentage in the minced meat, I thought about that time when I visited my friend in his village, east of my homeland in Malaysia. Scanning through fleshy, pink fresh meat, organic and non-organic, continue reading »

My grandmother, who passed away eight years ago, read through the Bible annually.  I still remember her in her house dress and bathrobe sitting in an old arm chair in the morning leafing through her well-worn King James.  I aspire to her consistency but not the house dress and bathrobe, they were kind of awful!  continue reading »

These days I find myself often considering and being challenged by Mordecai’s words from Esther 4:14 – And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? The story of Esther has been a source of inspiration for me for some time.  Esther’s courage, her commitment to continue reading »