In the New Testament (Mark 5:21-43 & Luke 8:40-56), there's a seemingly simple story concerning a girl who has died and a woman who touched Jesus' robe for healing. On the surface, it's about receiving miraculous healing by having faith in Jesus. But, as I was reading this passage today, I realized some details in it that offer a more profound deliverance, for me at least.  The woman has been afflicted with an unending menstruation for twelve years at this point. Twelve years of being a woman of child-bearing age yet without the ability to conceive due to this abhorrence. On the other hand, we have a girl dying in the intro and dead upon arrival that happens to be twelve years of age. Dead when the woman's menses stopped.  What I realized about this story is that it's not just about two females but one. The fact that the story has been told as one, linked through Christ's actions, reveals the integrity of the two females' indivisibility. As Mark 4:12 sta...

" It was the Constitution that welded them together politically, legally, and economically,  but it was nature that provided a transcendent feeling of nationhood ." When I read the profound introduction to Andrea Wulf's Founding Gardeners , I couldn't help but find comparisons between the time in which Benjamin Franklin was constantly sending seeds back to America for the cultivation of a future independent nation and Washington uprooting all native British trees and shrubbery from his land to the homesteading and off-grid living explosion that's happened in the last 20 years. Yes, there's been talk originally of another civil war but, lately, more of a united movement of a quiet revolution that's happening on both sides of the aisle.  Pre-American Revolution was an ever-increasing, tension-building intensity between the British Empire and the colonists. Most of us were taught that the revolution was fueled by the amplified raising of taxes but, in reality...

  I've never excelled at styling my hair. For most of my life, I left it long and hanging in whatever state it happened to be. There were a few times I had it cut short which required more styling finesse than I have been want to give. Only a handful of years was I willing to use styling products, and, for about ten years, I insisted on dyeing my hair, partly due to it graying and a few times for fun.  Generally, hair, as both secular and religious history calls it, is a woman's "crowning glory." I'm not sure what led me to my search, but I became interested in hair coverings for women according to the Bible. Why have so many religions or denominations required a head covering for women? That search led me to all things hair particularly when I found a Nazarite's vow seemed to be rather similar to the requirements for a woman's haircare.  First off, I've spent my entire life with the understanding that Nazarites were a separate religious group from bib...