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
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
Momentary Meaning
Off to the mountains last week. All the pieces were in place: rented house at Big Bear Lake for four days, my wife Marian, our fourteen year old son, and his grandparents. Our son is one of the quietest kids you’ll
A Submarine Moment
An image sticks with me. Sitting in a group discussing the importance of presence in our lives, we talked about how rarely our thoughts are actually filled with only what we’re doing at the moment—who we’re with. I ask each person
Manufactured Moments
I got an email from a good friend who wrote, “Some days I am worried about the future of our finances, my relationships, my kids, or the health of those I love. Other days I am just content to have
Redefining Pointless
So I’m on my way in to an event at our church. We’ve got a well-known guest musician coming in, there are additional details to deal with, I’m running late, and nearly out of gas. Not a good combination. Of course
God’s Shade
Growing up Catholic, I would walk into the confessional and kneel in the dark waiting for the warm rub of wood on wood as the lattice window slid open. My cue. Bless me father for I have sinned… As a grade
