by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Feb 10, 2020
For three days in an Airbnb rental in a cozy Atlanta neighborhood, my team and I took a spiritual retreat. Nine of us worshiped together, laughed and played together, ate meals together, envisioned the coming year together, and worked on some detailed processes...
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Feb 1, 2020
There’s a classic Jewish aphorism: “two Jews, three opinions.” It sounds like the punch line to a joke, but it’s merely an observation about Jewish willingness to see all sides of an argument and to debate them with aplomb. Rabbi Wolpe references Yeats: “Out of the...
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Jan 21, 2020
It’s easy to get depressed these days. Between meanspirited win/lose politics, the dismissal of fact-based debate, public shootings, brutal treatment of migrants and asylum seekers, extreme weather events, and destabilized foreign relations, the darkness around us...
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Sep 14, 2019
At one church I visited recently, a long-time member confided that the church was going to have to split because the two pastors had differing views on human sexuality and the Bible. Why can’t our differences live side by side? They do in the Bible. ...
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Dec 23, 2018
This Christmas, my husband I will celebrate the holiday surrounded by a variety of family and friends. Most of these folks have an unusual characteristic in common: they are recovering addicts and alcoholics. Their length of sobriety ranges from 10 days to 30 years....
by Rebekah Simon-Peter | Jun 27, 2018
I spend a lot of time, intentionally, with the spiritual but not religious folks in my community. I’m always amazed at the refreshing honesty and humor in our conversations. There’s a real willingness to laugh at former misfortunes, to give credit to a higher power,...
