Getting Lost in the Woods

Jason and I recently revised our will, so that should the unexpected happen, our kids would have a home with friends in the community they have grown up in.Our estate lawyer explained to us that in her experience, it was uncommon for folks to update their will for positive reasons. ​What she tended to see was folks updating their will when they wanted to cut someone out.Removing someone from a will is a sign and symbol that the relationship has been severed; whether because someone has died, a marriage has ended, or a family member has become estranged. She said in all of her years of estate planning, she has only had one person revise their will to write someone back into the will . This is both profoundly sad and not exactly surprising. ​​ Family systems are challenging and hard. Even when a family is filled with love, relationships are complicated. Within every family, we each fall into a role, unconsciously adopting scripts and behaviors to help us play our role in the system. When...

On the first Sunday of Lent, we hear the strange, and somewhat curious, story of what happens to Jesus in the wilderness.  The story appears in all three of the synoptic gospels -  Matthew,   Mark , and  Luke .  In each one: events take place immediately after Jesus’ baptism, where God made the   mind-boggling   announcement that Jesus was God’s beloved Child, the Holy Spirit played an active role ensuring Jesus went into the wilderness; where he remained there for forty days;  and was tempted by Satan. After those similarities, the translations begin to diverge. In Mark’s gospel, there is no context for what it looks like to be tempted; instead we are told  Jesus was not alone .   Rather, he was  ‘with the wild beasts’  and the  ‘ angels waited on him.’    Meanwhile, Matthew and Luke paint a picture of a famished Jesus, a result of forty days of fasting.   Satan then finds creative ways to test Jesus' ...