Rain Falls
Have you always worked for a guaranteed, monthly or hourly salary or have you worked freelance or project-to-project or owned your own business? If you’ve done both at various times, you know how different the experiences are. Working for a
The Politics of Jesus
If Jesus were here today, would he be a Republican or a Democrat? Really? What I first thought had to be a rhetorical or facetious question was being asked in all sincerity. And the quick answer: that he would be
Christmas Truce
Christmas has become so familiar and ritualized that it may help to look for renewed meaning in the unlikeliest of circumstances, to travel from the traditional imagery of December in year one of the Common Era to a distant Christmas
Hot Chocolate
Five AM. Awakened with a thought I can't put down until I put it down here. The house is dark, quiet. Phones are dark, quiet. Light rain falling outside. Christmas lights still burning on the house across the street, colored
Small Things
A decade ago, my wife and I and our two boys were driving somewhere I forget–the destination as always being much less important than the moving together in a comfortable, dedicated space. Brennan, our then four year old, had brought
Beginnings and Endings
If you want to understand something, go to the beginning. If you want to know something, go to the end. The difference between understanding and knowing is as vast as that between a PC and an Einstein
Lives and Trees and Stars
Forests and trees. There is a very special relationship between forests and trees. Sometimes we say we can't see the forest for the trees, and when we do, we mean that, nose on bark, we've gotten so lost in minutia and
Preacher Teacher
The purpose of a preacher is to persuade. The purpose of a teacher is to make students ready to engage. I’m a teacher. I’m also a pastor, so many people call what I do on Sunday mornings preaching. But it’s not—not any more
What God Wants
I’ve often heard pastors and televangelists talking about what God wants. What God wants us to do or feel or say or [mostly] give. I’ve always thought it fairly presumptuous to claim to know what God wants from our perch
Lenny
I had just hit snooze on the phone alarm a few minutes ago and was still lying there in that early morning half awareness. And I wasn’t thinking of it at the time, but I’d lit a nine-minute fuse that
