Donna Schaper is senior minister at Judson Memorial Church in New York City. She has two green thumbs, one as a gardener and the other as a pastor. She likes to make things grow. She teaches at Hartford Seminary, a leading interfaith seminary, and consults frequently on brick and mortars, real estate and sacred sites. Her most recent book of 38 is I Heart Francis: Letters from an Unlikely Admirer.
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Nothing like a hedgerow
Daily Easter Reflections: I have always loved to walk hedgerows. They are unruly places that refuse to be mowed or that people forget to mow. They are untamed places, often as beautifully wild as they are magnificently unused. They have extraordinary biological density. In this space things are left alone long enough to mingle.
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Turning off the engine
Daily Easter Reflections: We had sailed at dusk on Florida's Biscayne Bay. We were out for about four hours when our captain turned toward home. Usually, in other sails, she had turned on the engine as we approached the dock. Her boat, a sailing instructor's boat, is docked at the far end of the marina in a corner, a bit of a tight squeeze but not impossible, with the engine going.
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Calmly plotting the resurrection
Daily Easter Reflections: "There she was, calmly plotting the resurrection." E.B. White, the children's author who penned the famous Charlotte's Web, said these words about his wife Katharine, also a writer and editor, when she planted daffodils in late November during the last year of her life.
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Lord, teach us to pray
Daily Lenten Reflections: In scripture, we read of Jesus' stories and write our own guidebook from them. We also orient ourselves with prayer. We agree to pay deep attention to the road instead of just gliding along. We look around. We see. We acknowledge where we are. In prayer, we ask God to guide us.
