The Best Version of Myself… What’s the recipe?

April 24, 2013 By 1 Comment
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With vacation, a planned hike to the summit of St. Helen's, and a climbing project brewing that I'm excited about sharing later, I recently reread a book called "Bone Games: Extreme Sports, Shaminism, Zen, and the Search for Transcendence".  Rob opens with the story of his most desperate moment.  He's fallen, is seriously injured and stranded on a small ledge with hundreds of vertical feet below waiting to devour him when he tries to down climb - with his injury - in the dark - in the snow.  … [Read more...]

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Marathon Bombs and Baseball’s Best – Lessons on life vs. death from April 15th

April 16, 2013 By 2 Comments

Yesterday, as often happens, sport became the backdrop for something larger.  It also happened to be something horrific as Boston blew.  But sport and life were celebrated yesterday too, because April 15th is Jackie Robinson day in Major League Baseball every year.  We do well to ponder, celebrate, and learn, especially this year, when fear is crouching at the door, inviting violence. His story can teach us a few things about the only good way forward.  Here's why: April 15th, 1947, in a … [Read more...]

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Torn and Tattered: mutual brokenness as the basis of friendship

March 19, 2013 By Leave a Comment

"I needed to be back on track. Pity is the last thing you need. Pity is hopeless. Pity is what someone gives you because he is afraid to take care of you. I didn’t need that", said Phillipe regarding why, in spite of 90 highly qualified applicants, he hired an ex-con with no experience to be his care giver after his paragliding accident which left him a quadriplegic.  The story of his relationship with his caregiver, Abdel, nicknamed Driss, is explored in the marvelous movie "Intouchables", … [Read more...]

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Redeem Everything: Learning from St. Patrick

March 15, 2013 By 3 Comments

As the weekend of green beer and cabbage approaches, it's appropriate to consider the rich heritage most of enjoy without even knowing it, passed down from the Celtic Christian communities of Ireland and Scotland during the dark ages.  You can learn about through a favorite book of mine, "How the Irish Saved Civilization", whose thesis is that when the Roman empire collapsed and the west was plunged into centuries of barbarism and fear, the bastions of sanity were the Celtic monasteries.  This … [Read more...]

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Powers and World Forces: Sugar, Salt, Fat, Coke, Kellogs, Kraft, Coke.

February 28, 2013 By 12 Comments

"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...]

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Turn off the TV, come to my senses

February 12, 2013 By 8 Comments

The days recently have been fuller than they ought to be.  Obligations, activities, teachings, preparations, all good things in themselves, have been stacked, like smooth bricks, so tightly that you can't fit a piece of paper between them.  When this happens life becomes reactionary.  When this happens margins disappear and life begins to feel like a video game, where stuff is just coming at me and I'm reacting. The worst part of this is the toll it takes on the end of the day.  When I … [Read more...]

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Words for Advent: Life

December 14, 2012 By 6 Comments
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I come down off the slopes, having spent a day skiing in Austria with some friends after a very full week of teaching students, meeting staff here, and doing church work at home.  The day couldn't have been better, and the upcoming night was perhaps, for me, the highest privilege of all.  I was the speaker for graduation this evening.  I love young adults, and at the end of spending a week with them, to be granted the privilege of offering final words before they sail from the shelter of … [Read more...]

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Words for Advent: Anticipation

December 12, 2012 By 1 Comment
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It's Wednesday night.  I'll be teaching this evening, and then again tomorrow for several sessions.  Then there's graduation on Friday night, where I'll be privileged to share for a few minutes before the students celebrate the completion of their time here at Tauernhoff. It's always around this point in my "two weeks and change" trip to Europe that I begin to long for home.  This trip will be extended for a few wonderful days of fun with my daughter who teaches in Germany, as she visits … [Read more...]

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Words for Advent: Suffering and Shalom

December 5, 2012 By 1 Comment
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There are moments of perfection in life, moments you wish could be frozen forever.  Such was the hour this past Sunday as I walked with my daughter and her boyfriend on a now familiar path through the countryside on the southern border of Germany.  Everything about the walk was perfect.  It had been snowing all morning, but stopped just prior to our walk leaving the landscape and architecture blanketed in snow white.  The light was sensual, the conversation perfectly appropriate. The land … [Read more...]

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Sex, Shame, and the Gospel… resources for conversation

October 9, 2012 By 20 Comments

We Christians, especially in America, are terrible at having healthy conversations about sexuality and sexual ethics.  The landscape of these conversations are ripe with charges, counter-charges, fear, and sweeping judgements, so much so that when I write about sexuality, I need to read all the comments carefully so as to remove the hateful words that inevitably show up, offered in the name of "staying true to the faith" or "holiness" or some other such nonsense, in much the same way that the … [Read more...]

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