Thanks, Dad. I’m thinking about him today. Dad died 1½ years ago at 92, having lived a long and good life. As I think back today, I’m recalling how he enjoyed life, loved God and his family, and worked really hard at a job he adored for 36 years as a professor and administrator at a Christian … More Thanks, Dad
Some of us white people have been moved to lament by the obvious racism in our land. It’s happened before; it will happen again. Whenever we feel pain, something inside wants to run from it, to get away. Perhaps that’s how we’re made to respond automatically to pain — a defense mechanism that’s pretty useful … More Glimpsing the Racism Within
“I can’t breathe.” Air is free. Oxygen is everywhere. We have to breathe to live. But some cannot breathe. In hospital rooms around the globe covid victims on ventilators are trying to breathe. The virus takes your breath away. On asphalt in too many American cities black men are pinned to the ground, crying out, … More A Time to Mourn
CS Lewis’ A Grief Observed was necessary work that arose from his personal sorrow. Grief needs to be acknowledged, expressed with authenticity. Grief demands it. The post below isn’t designed to evoke sympathy, certainly not pity, but rather an attempt to be loyal to the voice that sadness wants to speak. Digital Diary, May 24, … More GriefWork in WindowLight
In a time of disruption, when the normal patterns of life are bent, we have two choices. One is to use the effort of one’s mind or will to try to make sense of what has gone wrong or try to straighten what is bent. The head wants to return to the prior status quo, … More Healing of Dis-Ease
In the early May morning on the back porch the birds and breeze testify. Listen. See. The world gnashes teeth over the economic disaster upon us. Corona is infecting everything. The tumblers of bankruptcy are clicking into place, one after another. The stock market rises on hopes of reopening the economy. The stock market falls … More Listen. See.
I wrote this blog in early March, but felt it unfit for the season of Lent, expecting to offer it instead sometime after Easter. Now, following the celebration of Resurrection, we are overwhelmed by the reality of a global pandemic and economic collapse. These are serious days. Yet, in an unexpected response to the painful … More They Both Laughed
This Easter I’m thinking about the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life spans the biblical canon from the first chapters of Genesis to the final chapters of Revelation. For some believers even the wood of the cross of Christ has an echo of the tree that gives life. The pen and ink drawing above, … More Easter Tree of Life
The great Kenotic Hymn of Christ in Philippians 2 describes him as one who “did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant.” That humble, vulnerable emptying reached its depths in the cruelty of the crucifixion. Ron Rolheiser (Sacred Fire, ch. 9) has noted that … More The Passion which Is Passivity
Like so many of us, we are having Sunday morning Bible classes and worship online this Holy Week. In our class meeting at “virtual” First-Baptist-Abilene this morning, we were imagining what it would have been like to be in Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday. My colleague Ken Lyle suggested to us that in a … More The Grace We Need for This Day
An Ever-Flowing Stream 