"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness...." Ephesians 6:12 This story on NPR caught my attention yesterday because it came just as I was doing something I rarely do anymore: stuffing my face with chicken McNuggets from McDonalds while I was driving home from a study day in the mountains. It wasn't the best of days. Forgetting the computer cord meant was I done studying (or at least writing my sermon) earlier … [Read more...]
Powers and World Forces: Sugar, Salt, Fat, Coke, Kellogs, Kraft, Coke.
February 28, 2013 By 12 Comments
The gift of a stone in your shoe (or, “How to build a better life”)
February 18, 2013 By 1 Comment
I'm running to the library on a Saturday afternoon because there's a book waiting for me there about the Grand Canyon. The run will be 3.4 miles, and somewhere between the first and second miles a tiny stone found it's way into my minimalist shoe. It's smaller than a rice-krispy, but the level of annoyance is out of proportion to the stone's size. Even so, I ran on, feeling a mild pinch underfoot with each step, hoping it will go away on its own. I arrive at the library, procure my book … [Read more...]
It’s my body, and I’ll do what I want to – the myth of private sexual ethics
January 30, 2013 By 9 Comments
"We're two consenting adults. What we do behind a closed door is nobody's business." There, in those two sentences, you find the prevailing, public, sexual ethic of western civilization. By "Public Ethic" I mean to say that this is what, collectively, we believe. There are sexual ethics to the left of this that we reject as a culture (pedophilia, rape, abuse) and to the right ("sexual practice should be confined to expression between a man and woman who are married"), but both sides are … [Read more...]
The Covert Gnostics among us…and how to repent
November 8, 2011 By 3 Comments
People who read blogs like this one are often people like me. I like to live inside my head, so much so that there are days, (especially when I'm writing a book), that I never leave my chair. On such days, when my imagination is running wild, and I'm using the building blocks of letters, words, phrases, to create something, I don't even notice my inactivity. "It's good to think!" I tell myself, as I move from desk to kitchen, back to desk, back to kitchen, before finally, late at night, … [Read more...]
Imperfections…the soil for intimacy
October 25, 2011 By 12 Comments
When I was in high school, I went to a conference where I received a red notebook which contained important and life-changing information about self-image. It was there I learned the powerful truth of Psalm 139, that I am "fearfully and wonderfully made" and that I could wake up and look at in the mirror every morning believing that God had made me "just the way I am." I tried, but could never quite get there because in my most honest moments, I knew that there were things about me that I'd … [Read more...]
On pins and needles: faith and acupuncture
September 30, 2011 By 11 Comments
If you visit this blog regularly, you know that I believe in the authority of the Bible as the final voice regarding what God has to say about our world, where it came from, what's wrong with it, where history is headed, and how humankind can be restored to God. You know, too, that I believe in the uniqueness and centrality of Christ, and preach that He is indeed, the door, the way, the truth, and the life - the single door through which all must walk for eternal life. I agree with my most … [Read more...]
Grace, generosity, gratitude, God – the real 4G network
August 10, 2011 By 4 Comments
There was no way it could happen. Last Thursday afternoon, I was watching ESPN and happened to see that the "biggest series of the year" was about to happen for the Red Sox, as they met the Yankees at Fenway park in Boston. Then it dawned on me that, with the red-eye flight out of Seattle Friday night, I'd be IN Boston on Saturday, which meant that, in theory at least, I could go to the Sox/Yankees, in August, with these two teams tied for first, at one of the few remaining ballparks in the … [Read more...]
What are you looking for?
July 26, 2011 By 2 Comments
"where you treasure is, there your heart will be also..." Matthew 6:19 Our holiday in Austria this past June, courtesy of the marvelous church I pastor, allowed my wife and I several days to hike in the Alps. And hike we did: up, up, up, until we were high above any trees, leaving us hiking on something that was, at times, akin to the desolation of the moon. Up there, "trail" means something entirely different than down lower, where a swath is cut through trees, and a clear path beaten down … [Read more...]
Skinny Church – the wrong fast for a hungry world
June 7, 2011 By 1 Comment
If nutrition is a hobby of yours, then you know that something as simple and straightforward as eating food has dozens of conflicting schools of thought. Macrobiotic people swear by rice and seaweed. Paleolithic people think rice, and most agriculture for that matter, is from the devil himself. Vegetarians think meat eaters are cruelly killing animals, and, by eating meat, their own bodies. Vegetarian Myth (a favorite book of mine) takes pretty much the opposite approach. Back in the day, low … [Read more...]
Skinny Church – the wrong fast for a hungry world
June 7, 2011 By 1 Comment
If nutrition is a hobby of yours, then you know that something as simple and straightforward as eating food has dozens of conflicting schools of thought. Macrobiotic people swear by rice and seaweed. Paleolithic people think rice, and most agriculture for that matter, is from the devil himself. Vegetarians think meat eaters are cruelly killing animals, and, by eating meat, their own bodies. Vegetarian Myth (a favorite book of mine) takes pretty much the opposite approach. Back in the day, low … [Read more...]
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