I was tired yesterday (road time always gets to me on the 2nd and 3rd days back), and I’m antsy today. Both of these eat into my productivity, but they do help in my reflectivity — which, I guess, is part of my job, too. Part of my job is to be a professional thinker [...]
Last week I went to visit the daughters in Illinois, who were home from spring break. I’m always delighted to be with them, yet it was also one of those visits, full of cross-purposes, where I was also somewhat glad to come back to Minnesota. The time had a certain tension to it, with Corrie [...]
The other day my eldest daughter called and asked if she could donate my old trombone to be sent to Haiti through her college’s music program. I immediately said “Yes,” but that I wanted to say goodbye to it when I was down visiting them. I’ve had that trombone since I was in 4th grade, [...]
Within a span of 24 hours, I got to hold and to bless (to the extent that I have the power to bless) a 27-hour-old baby, then to spend a couple of hours with my youngest daughter, who at one point in her life was 27 hours old but is now a grown young woman [...]
What do you do when there’s a disagreement, and there’s right on both sides? I’ve run into another one of those lately. For my own part, I try to listen, respect, and work through the disagreement, and sometimes agree to disagree. Hopefully on that basis a certain amount of trust is maintained, even though agreement [...]
I have been remiss in my blogging over the last few days. It just goes to show that establishing new habits isn’t always the easiest thing to do. My apologies, O y’all in the blogosphere.
Habits are one way of getting along in life; changing habits can be a way of getting along better. Several months [...]
“Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:41)
What does it mean to wait upon the Lord? A couple of thoughts surface; sometimes to “wait” means to let time pass for [...]
I ran, into a circumstance of helplessness this morning, involving someone I cared about, but about whose circumstances I could do nothing. Most of the time when I feel helpless it’s a motivator; I try to be helpful, solution-suggesting (yes, I’m a typical male in that regard!) but here, all I could do is share [...]
The sermon I preached this morning was about the Jerusalems in our lives, in the context of human ways that get in the way of God’s ways. In Luke 13: 31 – 35, Jesus lamented over Jerusalem as the city who killed the prophets in pursuit of expedient ways, or ways of maintaining human power [...]
I had two encounters today with people going through struggle — one electronically and one in person. It was my day off, but in my experience, at least, I don’t take a day off from being a Christian. Listening, responding, trying to care, and most importantly, trying to be a vessel of Christ, even if [...]
