At church the Sunday prior to Ash Wednesday, the Rector told us that this would be the last time we’d be saying the word “Alleluia” in any form as a congregation until Easter. He explained that this was another form of Lenten fasting. I did a little research, as this custom was unfamiliar to me. I learned many liturgical traditions “buried the alleluia” in some form during Lent. Jamie Martin-Currie offered a concise explanation of this practice: The omission of... Read more
I used to think men were the primary consumers of porn, though I’ve known a few women over the years who admitted to their own porn habit. The Fifty Shades “Mommy porn” phenomenon has changed the conversation in our culture. Women, you may think that the dreck you’re reading on your Kindle during naptime – or the movie you’re planning to see this weekend to celebrate St. Valentine’s Day – is between you and (maybe) your husband or boyfriend, but it’s... Read more
We live in an age of acceleration, in an era so seduced by the instantaneous that we’re in grave danger of losing our ability to wait. – Sue Monk Kidd Sue Monk Kidd wrote these words in 1990, before smart phones and always-on accelerated our lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined way back in the good old days of AOL dial-up. Yet our culture was already moving at the speed of frantic twenty-five years ago. The expectation of instant... Read more
When you’re a parent terrified by the fact that your newborn didn’t come complete with an owner’s manual, you may be easy prey for a door-to-door salesman who magically appears at your house one day with one just for you. When you sign on the dotted line, desperate for a quick fix, it may take years to discover you’ve sold your family into spiritual slavery. That book of answers you bought are really some bloviator’s opinions packaged as facts. Only... Read more
Mike and Diane Siri offer a great example of what a second act in life and ministry might look like. They’d each built successful careers in the business world during the first half of their lives. “After twenty-five years in the corporate world, I realized I wasn’t pursuing my passion, which is the development and nurturing of God-honoring relationships,” Mike told me. “As I began pursuing a path of helping others restore, nurture and celebrate relationships, a vision began to... Read more
You might think my office was a very poorly organized library if you were to stop by my house right now. You’d be right about the sad state of my organizational skills. The festive piles of books surrounding me includes my textbooks for this quarter’s class at Northern Seminary and the crazy rotating cast of characters I’ve been borrowing by the pound (for this project) from actual libraries that keep their books on shelves organized by Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress numbering... Read more
Afew weeks ago, I was at a McDonalds PlayPlace with my two grandsons, ages 6 and 11. There were a half-dozen other older caregivers in the room watching the kids burn off some of that Happy Meal energy. When a little girl took a tumble down a slide and cried, “Grandma!” we all rose to our feet to see if it was our grandchild who needed comforting. Boomers hear a lot about the stresses of the “sandwich generation,” caught between... Read more
The latest “I once was ‘found’, then I headed for the exit door” tale making the rounds among the Christian internet world is that of George Perdikis, one of the founder of Christian pop band, the Newsboys. Whether it’s stories like that of Bob Dylan, Frank Schaeffer, Katy Perry, or countless others over the last 2,000 years who have elected to walk away from orthodox Christianity, we who stay may have one or both of these responses: (1) We may chalk it up... Read more
How can the church better nurture spiritual growth for those in the second half of their lives? I contend that the way we answer that question may well change the way we disciple all of our members. Certainly cultivating the spiritual disciplines is part of that answer, but it’s important to remember that those practices are not the goal. Christlike maturity is the goal – not just for individuals, but for all of us, corporately. Because we’ve often defaulted to... Read more
As a writer, I spend my days playing with words. This also means I spend too much time – usually when I’m writing a first draft – watching cat videos, rearranging my cabinets, thinking about what to make for dinner, and watching the squirrels re-enact West Side Story outside my window. When I’m not watching Tony Squirrel woo Maria Squirrel, I do try to pay close attention to how people use words. Language is a living thing. I’m fascinated by... Read more
Pilgrim's Road Trip
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