Gaining a heart of wisdom
He walked into the bank, obviously carrying a heavy load, and wearing a proud smile. "I can help you over here," I chirped in my newly fluent teller-ese, and the white plastic bucket landed with a thud on the counter. He had personally counted and rolled over five thousand pennies and was bringing his loot… Continue reading Musings – June 2016
I can just barely admit this, but I have finally hauled all the cassette tapes -- John Michael Talbot, Carole King, Billy Joel -- out from under my bed. And I’m going to throw them away. Letting go of this one thing may not free my hands to grab hold of an entire universe, but… Continue reading Are We Following?
Everyday, the townspeople of Thrim would ask, "Hey, Yoj, how are you today?" And everyday, Yoj would answer, "I am fabulous and full of life!" And why shouldn't he be? Yoj was the happy doll maker who awoke each day with a song on his lips and dinner invitations almost every night -- until one day a mysterious stranger… Continue reading Fabulous and Full of Life!
Welcome to Hope Harbor where the pace is slow, but news travels fast; where visitors arrive to relax and clear their mind of distractions and then come away with new perspective. It's an unlikely destination for Eric Nash with his partner-track position at a high-end Portland law firm. But when "a strategic repositioning" leaves him… Continue reading The Things We Most Desire
Even though the class was a disaster, I still regret quitting high school physics. I wish that I had hung in there with my little TI-30 calculator and all the boys who wore theirs in "denim-look" vinyl cases hanging off their belts or bulging from their shirt pockets -- not because I suddenly care about… Continue reading Persevering – in Grace
If it is true that, as we age, we become even more of whatever we have been all our lives, then Luci Shaw is becoming more and more difficult to "shelve." A poet and essayist well into her eighties, she continues to tackle topics ranging from quantum mechanics and the incarnation to the haecceity** of… Continue reading Partners in Revelation: Bringing Beauty into View
In a couple of months, I'll be celebrating two years of blogging. When my pastor first invited me to be a guest writer for the church's blog, I could barely breathe whenever I clicked on that "publish" button -- and that really hasn't changed too much. What has changed, however, is my understanding of bold… Continue reading Four Faith-Forward Lessons from the Life of Moses
The rhubarb has made its wrinkled and deep green appearance, and it's time for me to plant the peas, the annual spring gamble for this risk-averse gardener. I've driven stakes into the warming soil, because when I opened the package, I realized (too late!) that I had purchased seeds for a variety that requires a… Continue reading Beginners All Our Life
Teaching or leading in a Christian context is always a bit of a risk. There's the perception that you just might have all the answers; that your life is all nice and pulled together; that you and God have some kind of agreement about how life is going to unfold -- when the truth is that… Continue reading In the Midst of Your Mess
So many books. So little time. Tozer is my "undiscovered author," and it's not as if I haven't delighted in brief quotations of his words -- a mix of the understated and the profound. It is even true that portions of his sermons read online have jolted me awake to God's holiness and drawn me closer to the… Continue reading A.W. Tozer: Thoughts on Prayer
Living Our Days 