Coworkers have been resigning, causing our boss to make unreasonable demands to take up the slack, so we start reading the help wanted ads. Someone in church offends us by a chance comment, and we're ready to start looking. Again. Our mate treats us like last week's leftovers, and we wonder how a divorce would affect the kids. Some jerk darts in front of us on the freeway, we slam on our brakes, and are ready to quit being Mr. Nice Guy. Fortunately…
Read MoreCreation Care
My recent camping/fishing Sierra trip stunned me with the natural beauty and how it all fits together—again. Funny how each trip does that. Mid October revealed the glory of golden aspen with the contrasting cedars and Ponderosa pines, the life-sheltering and beautiful streams, the awe-inspiring Milky Way at night. But heading home showed all isn’t well on Planet Earth. Lone Pine Creek was…
Read MoreTranscendence--In All the Wrong Places
One of my closest lifetime friendships was forged in high school and college. Ken and I then both followed Jesus, both left, only I returned. Ken has trekked the world. His innate curiosity and hunger for knowledge has led him to many worship events, in many faiths. During one of our conversations on his yearly trip back to the states, he offered, “Worship is funny. I visit my parents’ evangelical Christian worship, or that of my Muslim friends, and they all look the same.” Ken saw an outer similarity, but missed…
Read MoreFish by Faith, Not Sight
As you read this post, I’ll likely be on a stream like the one above. So please take a look at the pic. A close one, and focus at the middle of the pool just below the horizontal line of white water, just below the good sized rock. See any trout? Peer closely…
Read MoreRain
Some unusual or difficult events are messages from God. But not all. Some are temptations by Satan. But not all. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes, rain is just rain. Let’s explore the tension of figuring out how our choice and His sovereignty…
Read MoreSlowing Our Spirit--Episode 3 on Peace
On September the 8th, our refrigerator gave up the ghost. A nice run of 32 years, only to be killed by a power surge after SCE turned off the power. We found and purchased a new one on 9/10, delivery slated for 9/26. We didn’t care for the long delay, but on 9/23, they pushed it back to 10/1. We figured we could manage, if we had to. Then on 9/28, they changed it once more, to 10/14. We hope and pray that’s the day, but I’ll wager that too will get moved. Honestly…
Read MoreHabituated
No, this may not qualify as unusual, but some time back my email account got hacked. A friend forwarded an email he had received “from me,” with a link that obviously wasn’t from me. So, I changed the password that I’d kept for several years (OK, I made some minor, rememberable tweaks) into a longer more exceptional one. MUCH harder to remember. Much harder to hack.
But for the next several weeks, 90% of the times I signed into my email account, I automatically used the old email password. Habits die hard. Before…
Read MoreGold Medals
Exceptionally low self-worth plagued my early years. In elementary school, life lost so much joy I also lost laughter for several months. In high school, primarily only the permanence of suicide kept that from being tried. In college, I learned how to gold medal in competition—with others. No Olympic events, just outdoing others to make myself better. You see, if…
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