A couple of decades ago, I stood along the side of a busy highway for an hour a couple of Sunday afternoons holding a sign that read “Abortion Kills Children”, along with about 75 others. Some honked as they drove by in a gesture of solidarity with those of us in the life chain. Others gave us the middle-finger salute, or shared their feelings with us via curse words yelled out their car windows. In the end, I wasn’t convinced... Read more
I watched the premiere of ABC’s GCB last night. The low-octane blend of Mean Girls, Saved, any Real Housewives episode, a couple of jumbo cans of Aqua Net and a fifth of Grey Goose was like an overpriced drink; a GCB-tini meant to inebriate, not celebrate. There’s just enough truth inside GCB’s Texas-sized stereotypes about the unwritten rules of some corners of American religious culture to make this a shrill caricature. Religion here is just another way to continue the... Read more
I’m blogging through Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward: A Spirituality Through The Two Halves Of Life. Even if you haven’t read the book, please stick around and join the conversation here if you’re facing a mid-life transition. Father Rohr offers us all some meaty food for thought. Here are links to my previous posts in the series: Intro — Chapter 1 — Chapter 2 — Chapter 3 —Chapter 4 * * * * * * * We now`round the bend into... Read more
What is it like to be led by a spiritual leader who has immersed himself/herself in Leader Culture? You probably know a leader like this: a man or woman who devours John Maxwell books by the pound, attends conferences devoted to training his or her inner alpha dog, and exercises a vocabulary packed with tech words like “bandwidth”, “capacity”, “strategic” and “leverage” to talk about the congregation. A memorable series and a recent blog post got me thinking about this... Read more
This morning at church, the message was from Genesis 12, God’s call of Abraham. The preacher referenced Genesis 11, reminding us of the context into which this astonishing imperative was detonated – a post-Babel world. And that reminder sent me on a hunt for something I wrote a while ago. Imagine with me what it was like in those final moments on that ancient stairway to heaven… Sassan mopped his brow with the edge of his sweat-soaked tunic. He needed... Read more
I’m blogging through Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward: A Spirituality Through The Two Halves Of Life. Even if you haven’t read the book, please stick around and join the conversation here if you’re facing a mid-life transition. Father Rohr offers us all some meaty food for thought. Click here to read the introduction to the series. Click here to read my post about Chapter 1. Click here to read my post about Chapter 2. Click here to read my post about... Read more
A few observations: (1) This was the last time I let my hair go wild and free, Jew-fro style, until I kicked my blow-drying addiction last summer. (2) Those Levis look as though they might fall right off of me. (3) The yearbook photog caught me in an unfortunate sneer, but I was smiling on the inside. Seriously. (4) I was giving a speech about Jesus and the Passover. I didn’t know a whole lot about either one, but... Read more
I had one of those time-transcending moments last night in a warehouse in Chicago. Travel back in time with me for a moment, to 1995. My thee children, then ages 12, 10 and 9 and I have started another typical home school day. Breakfast, a few chores, prayer, then the day’s instructions, which invariably included a few minutes of journaling. Their journals were the one school assignment they had each day where I didn’t have to bust out the green... Read more
I’m blogging through Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward: A Spirituality Through The Two Halves Of Life. Even if you haven’t read the book, please stick around and join the conversation here if you’re facing a mid-life transition. Father Rohr offers us all some meaty food for thought. Click here to read the introduction to the series. Click here to read my post about Chapter 1. Click here to read my post about Chapter 2. * * * * * * *... Read more
I’m blogging through Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward: A Spirituality Through The Two Halves Of Life. Even if you haven’t read the book, please stick around and join the conversation here if you’re facing a mid-life transition. Father Rohr offers us all some meaty food for thought. Click here to read the introduction to the series. Click here to read about Chapter 1. * * * * * * * With a great big nod to Joseph Campbell, Chapter 2 opens... Read more
Pilgrim's Road Trip
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