December 2, 2024 | By Emma Ventresca BF ‘26

When a tree falls directly in my path, I try to move it not once, not twice, but hundreds of times, only to feel exasperated in the end. It is in these moments that I have learned that overcoming hardships is more than an act of my own will; it is an acceptance of His will, an act of divine grace. God may give us the strength to lift the tree off of the path some days; and other days, he simply calls us to endure, to trust on the journey, and to allow him to show us another way to travel.

June 25, 2022 | Anna Delamerced, MD

In pediatrics, there’s a thing called milestones. We love talking to families and children about them. Drawing a square. Tying shoe laces. Learning how to ride a bike. They’re markers of growth in a child’s development. At every annual physical exam, we check in on how they’re doing in school, what fruits and vegetables they like, how much exercise they’re getting. We love to learn about their interests, like art or music. We measure their height and weight. We show them how much they’ve grown.

April 13, 2022 | By Yoska Guta TD’25

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God allow evil? Where is God in the midst of suffering?

Growing up, my parents always taught me that it was okay, and even good, to ask questions about and of God. And although I wanted to believe them, I was convinced that if I questioned God’s character or His decisions, He would either meet me with wrath or be deeply disappointed. So, I made a subconscious decision to never question.

April 13, 2022 | By Katie Painter TD’23

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto

Sicut erat in principio

Et nunc, et semper

Et in sæcula saeculorum

March 21, 2022 | By Maddie Soule PC ‘25

In the thick of my second, and definitively more challenging, semester at Yale, I am becoming increasingly more aware of the temptation to run on autopilot—to exist in a sort of survival mode, doing what needs to be done without paying much attention to anything else. […] After a few weeks of trying not to fall into bad academic habits, I realized I had instead fallen into a detrimental lack of rest, release, and joy.

March 18, 2022 | By Sharmaine Koh SM ‘22

“I cling to you; your right hand upholds me” (Psalm 63:8)

My fist is clenched, knuckles white, around a glass marble. I can feel the curve of my nails making indents like crescents on the palm of my hand. The tension rides up to my shoulders. I’m clinging to the marble as if my life depends on it, and somehow, in the strange logic of this nightmare, it does, because —

March 14, 2022 | By Karis Ryu YDS’23

To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe in the God-man sent to die for the healing and renewal of the Creator’s world: to believe in suffering and healing, hand in hand. We must feel sorrow in order to also feel the necessity, impact, and joy of Jesus Christ’s act of ultimate and utter service when it comes—over and over again.

January 20, 2022 | Hannah Turner BK ‘23+1

Life is inherent to our being. While rich with opportunities for great love, life is also rich with the possibility of great hurt. In this life, it is natural for people to distinguish such experiences as good or bad—often honoring one and desiring to stray from the other. This is exemplified in interpersonal relationships, from those between husband and wife to between two children at school. Society today seems to concentrate on the moments of great love but encourages passing by great hurt as quickly as possible. There is no time spent validating feelings, or addressing the why behind negative sentiments—especially for men. The field of psychology, however, recognizes the nuance in these situations while maintaining the importance of attending to problems that may arise.

January 20, 2022 | By Serena Puang DC ‘22+1

I grew up in Arkansas, but for most of the last eight months, I’ve lived with my aunt and grandma in Taiwan. This lent itself to more than a few moments of culture shock and miscommunication. For the first two months, I felt like no one at church or in my ballroom dancing club wanted to be my friend. I would say hi and try to make conversation, but it always felt one sided.

These interactions led me to conclude that Taiwanese people, in general, were not friendly. After all, if a new person had showed up at my church/school/club meeting, I would never treat them that way. Was there something wrong with me? What was I doing that was putting people off?

January 20, 2022 | By Shi Wen Yeo MC ‘23

Memory is like a haze that gradually sharpens into focus as one grows up. One of my earliest, albeit haziest, memories is of Saturday afternoons when I was nine years old. For any child that age, Saturday afternoons were synonymous with pee-wee baseball games, time spent hanging from tree castles or playing in the sand. For me, Saturday afternoons were the longest afternoons of the week. Instead of basking in the gentle sunshine, I spent those afternoons suffocated by harsh, luminous lights that dangled from the ceilings of my “tuition center.” And I was not the only one.

January 20, 2022 | By Timothy Han SM ‘22

On December 6, 2017, AlphaZero, a new chess program developed by Google, changed the world. AlphaZero made its world premier in a match against Stockfish, the most dominant algorithm in chess history. Ever since IBM’s DeepBlue defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, engines have reigned supreme over humans in the world of chess. Stockfish, the latest in a long line of formidable chess algorithms, could evaluate 70 million moves per second; AlphaZero could only manage 80,000. An open-source program that has been ceaselessly improved since its debut in 2004, Stockfish came armed with countless formulas, strategies, and even endgame sequences to plan for every contingency.

January 20, 2022 | By Raquel Sequeira TD ‘21.5

“I’ve never felt as dependent as I am today on shaky data to make what could be life or death decisions.” I was struck reading the words of Dr. Neel Shah, an obstetrician describing what it’s like to care for pregnant patients in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. [1] As I watch the world through my internet browser, scientific facts seem to flip-flop like pundits. A graph of biotech stocks, responding to daily progress reports from the companies racing to produce a vaccine, might as well be tracking the sentiments of Facebook users as each new pandemic model urges hope or despair.

January 20, 2022 | By Jadan Anderson MC ‘22

Two years out from her twenty-year service with the U.S. Air Force, Mom keeps an American flag, neatly folded and elegantly framed in a closet downstairs, and insomnia between the restless tosses and turns of her four-hour sleep cycle. Though Mom is undoubtedly one of the strongest women I know, insomnia is just a single item on the long list of ailments that warrant her full disability compensation. That she has full disability is, to service members recently retired or retiring, great news. The sudden and somewhat steep drop of benefits experienced by veterans as they retire from service often feels more like getting the boot than a grateful send-off.

December 18, 2021 | By Hannah Turner, BK ‘24

“That’s funny,” my high school friend said when she heard the common Christian phrase thrown out in a conversation about racism. She had concluded the very opposite: God didn’t love her, if there even was a god.

November 26, 2021 | By Bella Gamboa JE ‘22

Limestone columns rise to an intricately engraved ceiling far above, whose artistry is somewhat shadowed as it lies above the lights that line the sanctuary. The nave is imposing yet familiar; its grandeur feels like home. The stained-glass windows are particularly exquisite: the cool blues and purples that enclose a stone brought from the moon, the panoply of shades in the rose windows, the vivid panes painstakingly joined by lead seams. The light filtering through the glass creates puddles of color, rivulets of crimson and gold, eddies of amber and sapphire. And these are but the wonders of the main sanctuary; both outside and deeper within, crevices and cornices, chapels and gargoyles, add to the intricacies and spectacle of the church.

November 7, 2021 | By Shi Wen Yeo MC ‘23

One of my favourite parts about Sunday mornings is walking into church and smelling the musty pews gently speckled with the mid-morning sun, and seeing the rows upon rows of pews, pews that are  usually littered with hymnals and psalters. I have been doing some reflection on this recently. What does it mean that hymnals or psalters are usually distributed as separate books as opposed to the rest of the Bible?

April 4, 2021 | By Serena Puang, DC ‘22 + 1

Happy Easter! He is Risen! It has been our honor to journey with you through Lent for the past seven weeks. I hope that wherever you are: whether at home or miles away, whether on fire for God or burnt out, you can take some time today to reflect on the miracle of the resurrection and its implications.

March 24, 2021 | By Katherine Matsukawa BK ‘23

I pray that I will decrease and that you will increase.

Use me, Lord.

Your will be done.

Growing up, whenever I heard someone pray these words, I’d typically think, good for them...but I could never pray those things sincerely.

March 19, 2021 | By Jason Lee TD ‘22

Sometimes the good news does not feel like good news. My confession is that, sometimes, my faith redirects my daily resentments from an implacable universe to an impassive God. It is easier, sometimes, to believe our afflictions result from the wingbeats of several rather malicious butterflies than from the motion of a world watched by a loving deity. Many believers have told me that the former viewpoint is much lonelier than the latter.

March 10, 2021 | By Margot Armbruster

Content warning: This piece discusses disordered eating.

It’s Ash Wednesday, early and cold. I’m locking my bike outside the Duke Chapel, catching my breath through my mask, rubbing the feeling back into my fingers. I’m here to lead worship at this morning’s service.

March 9, 2021 | By Katie Painter TD ‘23

Squeezing my eyes shut, I crouched at the bottom of the staircase and placed my hands over my ears. My stomach clenched as warm, salty tears began to drop from my eyes. I drew my knees up to my chest and waited for silence to overtake the clamor of voices hurling acerbic words overhead.

March 6, 2021 | By Shayley Martin DC ‘22

God wrote His law on my heart but it feels dry erase.

March 1, 2021 | By Sharmaine Koh SM ‘22

Many of the reflection pieces in this series have talked about the question: “What are you giving up for Lent?” It’s popped up in every piece because our humble offerings of things given up and the disturbance of routine in our ordinary lives are — by God’s grace — at the front and center of all our minds.

Feb 27, 2021 | By Jadan Anderson MC ‘22

Dear God,

I am always delighted to see a cross in ashes on the head of a person I know in passing. There are few signs more perfectly suited as a public declaration of faith in you: the ashes are quiet, yet bold, and its symbolic power is multiplied the more and more it is seen by others. Out of seemingly nowhere, people with this symbol populate the streets, workplaces, and schools.

Feb 24, 2021 | By Taylor Plett ‘21+1

What does it mean to be in the wilderness?

I spent a good hunk of 2020 moving between ranches in the Great Plains states—a near-nomadic stint of life in literal wilderness. It was an accidental metaphor for the world at large during a global pandemic. I can draw some parallels.

Feb 22, 2021 | By Sharla Moody BK ‘22

Lord, ask me not to walk atop the seas,

and give me not knowledge of all languages.

Do not speak to me with dew or marvelous wines,

and I plead that you not invite me to a banquet 

Feb 17, 2021 | By Will Willimon, Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity.

“The truth about life is that we shall die,” said writer Philip Roth, just before he died. Death is as out of control as life can get. In my years of pastoral work, I have served as psychopompos helping some five hundred souls to the grave, privileged to say a few words on God's behalf at their end.

Feb. 5th, 2021 | By Ashley Talton BR ‘23

Many of the people in the Zen Hospice end-of-life care facility, such as Mrs. M, are unable to eat. And yet, the most popular room in the house is the kitchen, where the aroma of freshly-baked cookies can be found, while people are chatting around the table. Even though the people there can’t enjoy the taste of the cookies…

Feb 5th, 2021 | By Bradley Yam SY ‘21

In an effort to restore a sense of optimism in these trying times, I offer a meditation on fruit. Yes––apples, pears, plums, bananas and berries aplenty. Fruits have not only fed, nourished, and pleased humankind with infinite color and variety since the beginning of history, but they have also offered wisdom that has largely been forgotten in the modern industrial food system.