Anita Yoder's Blog

How does God host us? How does God’s woman host? I think about this often and I don’t have all the answers, but I’m sure that part of hospitality involves our own person and how we bring ourselves to the space we’re in. We can be should be hospitable outside our homes and welcome others into our presence in casual, brief interactions, such as with the shelf stocker in the grocery store or the hostess who seats us at a restaurant. People always deserve our respect and love, and presence...

For whatever reason, I don’t love liturgical experiences. I can be ok with liturgy in some contexts, but I usually find it too confining, too structured for my heart to feel at home in.

There. I said an uncool thing.

Even so, I love following the church calendar. Especially I love following the seasons of Advent and Lent. Western Christianity tends toward appearing glossy, smooth, smiley, and satisfied, and it tends to not account for or acknowledge the crazy hard, bewildering, unfair...

Last week I was walking in the snow with a friend and we were talking about the books we’ll read during Christmas break.

“Remind me of the title of the book you said everyone should read,” she said.

“Well, right now I have two books that I’m saying everyone should read,” I said. “Are you thinking of Relational Spirituality  or The Body Teaches the Soul?”

“No—there was one before those.”

I doubled over laughing.

I can’t help that I’m the enthusiast who is sure that of course everyo...

I wrote this poem some time ago, but it works now too, except for the line about summer! I took this snowy picture two days ago and the snow is still falling and it’s beautiful beyond words.

I could write a poem about stopping by the woods on a snowy evening, but
Someone much wiser and more profound than I has already written a poem beginning with
that line and
After I read that I feel that I can never write so sparse and rich so why should I try,
But I have words in me that Frost never d...

Last week, this post gave the first part of this article on “home.” It introduced the idea that God cares that home creates comfort and safety. One day in chapel this week, we read Psalm 27 and my brain starting pinging when I saw all these words about God’s home: house, temple, dwelling, tabernacle. This concept must be important to God. I wonder how that should inform how we live, how we see the church and individuals? Rublev’s “Trinity”Creating welcome for the stranger

In addition to cre...

Over two years ago, the lovely team at Daughters of Promise asked me to write a thoughtful, theological article on home. It was to explore this question: “Why does home matter in the bigger context of God’s story?” It was a new idea to me, but I quickly got excited as I began to study and ask questions about home. Since then, it has become something I think about often and take notes about and dream of expanding this article to something significantly more substantial. For example, what is speci...

When I read Ultra-Processed People, (which every American should read, by the way) I was dismayed to find out that exercise doesn’t automatically burn up the calories I consume. For example, when I eat a Snickers bar then compute how long I need to walk to burn those calories, my walk will benefit me, but not by erasing those yummy junk calories. The math doesn’t math that way, which is deeply disappointing to me and also proves that numbers hate me.

Ultra-Processed People shook me for other rea...

They are mementos of a happy hour of immersive color. I’d pinned the inspiration painting on my “To Paint” Pinterest board and one Sunday afternoon I knew it was time. It was time to play, sketch, blend a branch across three panels.

The backs of old calendar pages gave the size I needed, plus the paper had enough texture to take on my chalk pastels. The technical term is that the paper had tooth but who knows what that means?

The colors morphed, shimmered, stretched across their lines to join e...

This poem came out of a prompt in the writers’ circle I’m part of, led by Rachel Devenish Ford .

I bring whimsy and laughter and hugs—

Here, have one!

Today’s too beautiful for dour, dry words and

We are delighting in spring’s light shining in eyes and

Music sparkling from fingers,

Colors spilling from dresses that drape and swoosh

Like pansy petals.

I bring cake and songs and glitter pens for everyone.

 

I bring questions and ache—

Here, take it—it’s heavy.

Today’s too sad for songs and

Questio...

Photo by Mahad Aamir on Unsplash

I’ve been thinking about circles and the ways they provide spaces of beauty, nurture, and life.

Some of my most formative, life-giving, sacred memories happened when I was sitting around a circle. Not in straight rows, not one-on-one, but in a circle. There were camp chairs or blocks of wood, benches, or floor pillows so some people were sitting higher or lower but no one was outside the circle. Both men and women sat in the various circles, people of many ages ...