It never occurred to him to see me, exhausted and falling to pieces, alone in that room with my mother as she labored on threshold of death.
Debra RienstraFebruary 4, 2023
Best-selling memoirs tend to tell big, dramatic stories—getting sober, the messy divorce, the cancer diagnosis, the series of lovers, living through war, recovering from abuse, the woes of being famous. For most of us, the challenge is to perceive the contours of our ordinary lives…
Debra RienstraJanuary 21, 2023
We’re all speculating here, I guess, with the understanding that the speculation is itself a process of hope: what do we long for? what outcomes can we imagine and, through that imagining, help enact?
Debra RienstraJanuary 4, 2023
A journey to who-knows-where to see who-knows-what without the proper supplies. We’re crazy.
Debra RienstraDecember 24, 2022
I propose that Advent is the time when we are allowed—even encouraged—to be honest about our disappointment, our sadness, our cynicism.
Debra RienstraDecember 10, 2022
In the face of climate change and other ecological disturbances, you want to try to enhance biodiversity in your own yard. And as people do this, they can not only experiment to try to find combinations of biodiversity that can actually thrive under new climate…
Debra RienstraNovember 20, 2022
I preach, I teach, I write, and so on, for that purpose: to hope that through my puny efforts God can help to rouse the church community. That’s what I think the church needs the most, is to be roused related to our social issues.
Debra RienstraNovember 13, 2022
What we mean when we say “climate resilience” is not simply the ability to bounce back after climate impacts and disasters, but the ability to bounce forward. So seeing these moments we’re in of climate breakdown not simply as a time to rebuild what has…
Debra RienstraNovember 6, 2022
You’ve exchanged friendly hellos while fetching the mail, and now you wonder: who are these alien beings?
Debra RienstraNovember 5, 2022
I can’t step back anymore. I’m committed. I’m going to go to the end with this. And I’m just going to let the results be in God’s hand.
Debra RienstraOctober 30, 2022
