Gaining a heart of wisdom
It's tempting, LORD, to put my faith in your gifts Rather than in you alone. Good health enables early rising, satisfying productivity; Strong legs: a swift gait; Clarity of thought: a coherent paragraph; An understanding friend: the comfort of being known. I wonder though, Could I share the Story? Advance the Kingdom? Or even get… Continue reading Prayer for a New Year
Sunday Scripture At the beginning of a new year and the winding down of the old, I love to look back on where I’ve been. With a coating of frosty white on the surface of my garden, it’s hard to imagine that just three months ago I was harvesting cucumbers and green beans by the… Continue reading Join Me in Remembering a Bountiful Year
Sunday Scripture By now, the Christmas season has landed in your home with all it's busy and delightful frenzy. Plans drafted and resolutions made back in the first week of Advent may be starting to wear thin as deadlines loom and energy wanes. Let's pause for a moment here to remind ourselves of the purpose… Continue reading Full of Grace and Truth
What is it about little white lights in December? We wrestle a giant tree into our living room, and every year I do my level best to make the green tangly wires disappear into the fragrant branches so the small twinkly lights can work their magic. We place white lights in every window, wrangling extensions… Continue reading Behold the Glory ~ Scripture Sunday
Read me the stories Of Jesus and Santa, Of stockings and shepherds and toys. Tell me the wonders Of snowflakes and wisemen, Of cookies and mystery and joy. Read "Night Before Christmas," Recite from Luke 2 and The wild words from prophets of old. Sing a Blue Christmas Then open your throat wide And shout… Continue reading Growing Up with the True Christmas Light
In his theological writing, C.S. Lewis described an inconsolable longing, sehnsucht, and pointed to it as proof for the existence of God. In his fiction, Lewis's characters vividly enfleshed that longing in their pursuit of mystery and their yearning for adventure. Unless we have fully anesthetized ourselves with Netflix and Amazon Prime, we all experience that… Continue reading A Love Song About the Life God Has Given
Sunday Scripture Using the lens of what C.S. Lewis called "the baptized imagination," I try to picture what it must have been like for Jesus's brothers to sit around the breakfast table or to do weekend chores with a sinless sibling. After John, the Gospel writer, had opened his own lens wide enough to take… Continue reading Celebrating God in the Neighborhood
Became. On this first Sunday of Advent, pause with me for a moment to soak in the stunning presence of the word "became" in connection with God the Son. Immutable and eternally uncreated, God became something else: Infinite became finite; Eternal became temporal; Invisible became visibly a baby, born in a remote part of Palestine and tethered to flesh… Continue reading The Word Became Flesh ~ Sunday Scripture
What verbs have defined your days of autumn in 2019? There's always something happening in this busy life under the sun, even if it's only talking or thinking--a couple of seriously under-rated verbs, in my opinion. Here at the end of November, I'm looking forward to celebrating around gratitude and pumpkin pie while taking one… Continue reading Concerning the Times and the Seasons: Autumn 2019
We're four days away from Thanksgiving here in the United States, and since the fourth Thursday in November is late in the month this year, we've had lots of time to prepare ourselves for a celebration of gratitude. How are you doing? I will confess to a certain grumpiness over the collision of holidays ahead… Continue reading Are You Showing the Symptoms of Gratitude Derailed? Sunday Scripture
Living Our Days 