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Taking a Collective Breath in a Season of Thanksgiving

by Rev. Dr. Kelly Jackson Brooks. LPCCNovember 21, 2025 Uncategorized0 comments

As we enter the season of Thanksgiving, many of us feel a familiar mixture of anticipation and saturation. This time of year, brings a flurry of gatherings, travel, planning, emotions, and expectations. It can be a life giving season —and it can be a complete drain on the spirit. Somewhere between preparing the meal, navigating family dynamics, and keeping up with work and life, we can lose...

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Saturation Point

by Rev. Dr. Kelly Jackson Brooks. LPCCNovember 14, 2025 Uncategorized0 comments

There comes a moment—sometimes quietly, sometimes all at once—when we realize we’ve reached our saturation point. It’s that internal threshold where the weight we’ve been carrying begins to spill over the edges of our capacity. We feel it in our bodies before we can often name it – exhaustion that doesn’t lift after sleep, irritability over minor things, an ache behind the eyes, or the...

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The Danger in Filling in the Gaps

by Rev. Dr. Kelly Jackson Brooks. LPCCNovember 7, 2025 Uncategorized0 comments

As humans, we are wired to be meaning-making creatures. When we encounter something we don’t understand—a silence, a delay, an unanswered text, an ambiguous look—we instinctively fill in the gaps. Our minds rush to complete the story, to make sense of what’s missing. It’s a survival mechanism, meant to keep us safe. The problem is, most of the time, the story we create simply isn’t true....

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The Significance of Remembrance and Ritual: Halloween, Día de los Muertos, and All Saints Sunday

by Rev. Dr. Kelly Jackson Brooks. LPCCOctober 31, 2025 Uncategorized0 comments

I have a handful of bucket list items that I slowly plan and experience as the years move forward. One anticipated experience that has reminded constant and at the top of my list, is a trip to Mexico City for the annual Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration. I want to be in the city among the marigolds and candles, to celebrate and remember, to build a collective ofrenda (alter),...

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“Grief is Love With No Place to Go”

by Rev. Dr. Kelly Jackson Brooks. LPCCOctober 24, 2025 Uncategorized0 comments

In the changing of the seasons from summer to fall and from fall to winter, I am intimately reminded of the seasons and changes we experience in life. This includes the change and loss of relationships, often ushering us into a season which we call grief. And what is grief, really? Grief is often described as a storm, a wave, a shadow that lingers long after loss. Yet, beneath every...

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Shoshin: You Cannot Do a New Thing While Constantly Defending the Old Thing

by Rev. Dr. Kelly Jackson Brooks. LPCCOctober 17, 2025 Uncategorized0 comments

I recently learned of a Zen Buddhism concept known as shoshin: the beginner’s mind. It is the state of openness, curiosity, and receptivity that comes when we approach something as though for the very first time. In the teaching of a beginner’s mind, there is freedom from assumption, pride, and the need to prove what we already know. “In the beginner’s mind,” wrote Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki,...

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“I Like Boring Things”

by Rev. Dr. Kelly Jackson Brooks. LPCCOctober 10, 2025 Uncategorized0 comments

Artist and creator Andy Warhol once famously said, “I like boring things.” At first glance, this may sound odd coming from one of the most iconic, eccentric, and creative figures of the 20th century. Warhol, with his soup cans, celebrity portraits, and avant-garde films, hardly appears to be someone enthralled with the ordinary. Yet this statement carries a truth worth pausing over:...

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Transitions & a Cup of Coffee

I am a big fan of coffee – church coffee, boutique coffee, Starbucks. It does not completely matter to me if my coffee originates from an espresso maker crafted ever so carefully with beautiful artwork showing through the foam from the local coffee shop, or straight from the verismo tucked in the corner of my office. I just enjoy my coffee.

I am also a fan of sharing sacred conversations with those dearest and most important to me over something as simple or complex as a cup of coffee. Conversations that are light and fun that share in celebrations and excitement, and conversations that sit on the soul in a different way. It’s the conversations of life, and laughter, tears, frustrations, broken relationships, and reconciliation. I enjoy a full life of connection.

I find myself this season seeped in sacred conversations embodied by the topic of transitions. These sacred conversations are conversations I find myself having with others as well as with myself. Transitions that include relationship shifts, employment discernment, and faith community affiliations. And yes, these conversations often happen over a simple, yet complex cup of coffee which for me, serves as a reminder of that which is a constant in my life – a grounding if you will to what is present, now.

I encourage each of you to find your grounding – in the midst of simple and complicated and complex conversations which is what makes life so very rich. Seek out those whom you love and care for dearly, and share in this grounding wherever those moments take you.

Grace & Peace,

The Chrysalis Team