Things I Am Learning

A thing I’ve joked about many times is that my God isn’t subtle. I don’t get the fuzzy inclination that perhaps I should go in this different direction. I get a wrecking ball, and by instinct, instead of bowing in gratitude for the flattening of all that guesswork and the clearing of the way, I …

The Purpose Of Lent

Five days since Ash Wednesday, and Lent has done its work already. In the brilliant collection of readings for the season found in Bread and Wine, Edna Hong writes: The purpose of Lent is to arouse. To arouse the sense of sin. To arouse a sense of guilt for sin. To arouse the humble contrition …

Reaching

Ash Wednesday, 2023. Spring is whispering its arrival with rain and unusual warmth. Every day feels a little bit more like a rising up, out of the interruptive prism of Covid and lockdowns. We are through it but not beyond it; maybe, then, we are still in it? I sit in the grace of a …

It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

"The thing about awe...is that it works. It helps you transcend the dreary, draining elements of everyday life and see something bigger. And in the presence of something bigger, you get quite small..." Kelly Corrigan I'm reading a fascinating book by Trevor Hudson called Seeking God. The subtitle is weighty: Finding Another Kind of Live …

Behold The Lamb Of God And Why We Drove Six Hours For A Concert

We first experienced Behold the Lamb of God in 2010, in a cramped room at Bon Air Baptist Church. My dear friends with impeccable taste in music - Jimmy and Judy - insisted that we go. So, we did. And our hearts were filled to the brim. The following year, we learned the music and …

Your Goodness Is Running After Me

I'm making green juice these days. It's messy, because I don't have a juicer. I use my blender - a powerful machine that appeared as a Christmas gift last year - and it does a great job 'extracting' material, by which I think it means, 'pulverizing' whatever you toss upon the whirring blades of destruction. …

It Takes As Long As It Takes

Apple Maple Pie! Something felt very different about today; I sensed a pivot point of sorts - or what feels like the definitive end of a season. Or maybe it was just that it was a day filled with good things, including a new recipe for a homemade apple pie. Or perhaps it was something …

Light

Out in the yard this evening, I was up to my elbows in my new hobby; literally. First of all, there's this: I have a hobby. Referencing again Oliver Burkeman's Time Management for Mortals, It seems the concept of 'having hobbies' might be a good way to counteract the incessant demands on our attention. Granted, …

Time

I'm reading a fascinating book about time: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. I love the subtitle: Time Management for Mortals. I heard Burkeman speaking with Krista Tippett earlier this year on an episode of On Being, and I was intrigued by the way he talked about time; that is, the concept of time in …

Making Space

I continue to learn more and more about what it means to make space, and what happens when I do. This is my vantage point. Something happens inside of my soul, and I don't know what it is or how it works. But I know what it's not. It's not the ritual; it's not the …