A Failure to Thrive ... marriage in the 21st century

Waiting for my flight I check my email, “Tina, Duane and I need to come in to see you ASAP.  I found out he has been communicating with another woman and has had drinks with her a couple of times.  I suspect more …” Read More...

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Tools for a Deeply Connected Relationship

When two people commit to each other they do so believing their love is strong and want it to grow even stronger over time.  My dad used to call marriage a Mutual Admiration Society Read More...

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Walking the Talk …

As I prepare for our next Couple’s Sacred Intimacy Retreat as well as a couple of upcoming talks, I find myself thinking about the eight couple’s that bravely ventured into the vulnerable world of intimacy at our last retreat in March. Read More...

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Need more joy? Take 5

Failure to take pleasure in the good things in life dishonors the gifts or accomplishments that deserve appreciation. It also dishonors your desire to know joy.
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Next Couple's Intimacy Retreat ........................ Sept 22-25, 2011 at the beautiful Pan Pacific Hotel, Seattle

September 22-25, 2011 at the Pan Pacific Hotel on South Lake Union, Seattle
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Desire – Can We Be Trusted?

You do not have to be afraid of emotions for Eros is the true healer. You only need to cultivate the passions that bind you to others and to the living world.
-Carl Jung
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Embracing Our Sexuality

I was recently interviewed by Jennifer Bostrom for the blog spuchablog.wordpress.com - a blog for Campus Housing at Seattle Pacific University. The interview centered around how to cultivate a healthy sexuality integrating sexual beliefs/expression with a Christian faith. Here is the interview:
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Living Marriage - Living Faith

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gal 15:22

Marriage as an invitation into the narrative of God's love - how we respond to this invitation ... in the moment to moment ... exposes our narrative of faith.
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The Holy Erotic

I am sitting on the deck at my temporary Santa Barbara writer's retreat. The sun dances on my eyelids and fills my soul with warm light. Read More...

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Your Body ... the incarnation of you

I have this picture on my screen saver
right now - it speaks of joy, of the
celebration of life, of silliness, of the love of a grandfather for his grandson and of a little boy who adored his "Grand-poop". Read More...

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How the Teachings of Sexual Purity Leads to Violence

"Tina, I don't know what to do. I'm supposed to be in the honeymoon phase of my marriage ... and we are both sexually miserable." Tears began to flow down her cheeks. Read More...

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Eros and the Force of God Within

Years ago life presented me with the experience of online dating ... not an experience for the faint of heart ... yet from which I learned a ton, experienced even more ... and somewhere far down the rabbit hole, met my beloved. Read More...

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America's Sexual Ethic

Silence ... just because it cannot be heard, does it have no effect? And ignorance ... no responsibility?

What is the guiding sexual ethic in our country? Read More...

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Ruah ... is now

I was reading the book Holy Eros by Whitehead and Whitehead the other day and came across the line: "Scholars today - social scientists as well as theologians - suggest that our hunger for contact with the foundational source of significance is part of what it means to be human." Read More...

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What is the story ... of your life ... of you?

A day bits and pieces - parts of a story ...
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Saudade

Its evening ... the light is fading ... I feel tired, slow, reflective. I spent the last 24 hours with graduate students and colleagues sharing stories of the human sort and was reminded of a word that has found its resonance in the cords of life over the last year. Saudade. Read More...

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Desire … is it of God?

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

- Ps 37:4 Read More...

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SEX!!! EDUCATION???

A Reader Question:

What would a healthy sex education look like inside a truly Christian paradigm? How do we teach our kids about sexuality when we believe our bodies and our sexual desires are a gift from God?

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Stubborn Winters

I don't usually do winter gracefully - I get tired of being cold, I get tired of the gray, I get tired of the waiting ... and tho spring has always come in her time ... like a doubting Thomas, by late winter I always wonder will she leave us this year in our perpetual frozen Narnia? Read More...

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Relative Gratefulness

It's Spring Break and for the university academic that means time to catch your breath, finally get something done or both. This spring break for me, it is both. Read More...

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