“I would not want to bring a child into this world” she said gently, yet emphatically enough to leave no uncertainty about her conviction. She was a student, travelling from her hometown of Ulm to Ravensberg, where she is studying to be an elementary school teacher. Her eagerness to practice English, coupled with our mutual curiosity of each other’s cultures created the recipe for a good long conversation. The train wound it’s way through southern Germany, from east to west,... Read more
The latitude here in southern Germany is nearly identical to Seattle, which means that the number of daylight hours this time of year is very short. Add a layer of fog to the shortness, and the daylight becomes so muted as to barely qualify as light. The fog hides the sun, mutes the shadows, and makes forward progress challenging because one isn’t looking at vistas – one is simply looking for next steps. This was the situation when I, along... Read more
My conversations with students this week here in Austria have revealed that one of the great needs of our time is a recovery of simplicity as a central value. Young people, blessed with health, wealth, and education, are sometimes paralyzed by the near infinity of choices available to them. They stand, not at a crossroad, or even at an intersection, but at the base of an entire mountain range, with the need to choose a next step. This abundance of... Read more
I just returned from a worship service here in Austria on this 2nd Sunday in Advent. Though I understood only a few dozen words, I wanted to be there both to worship, and because of my friendship with the pastor (we had a discussion about Austrian church history, and you can view it here). It was beautiful and by beautiful I mean many things, not the least of which is that it was utterly appropriate for the Austrian culture. The... Read more
Obama failed to give thanks to God in his online Thanksgiving address. He thanked God in his written address. He thanked God last year. He closes speeches, as every president ever has, with “May God bless the United States of America”. None of this matters though to Fox News, who obsessed over his Bush like omission (Bush also failed to mention God in his final Thanksgiving address). The failure was offensive enough that one paper wrote his comments are “just... Read more
For we who follow Christ, the season of Advent is about looking squarely into the thick of our lives and our world, paying attention, and seeing what’s really there. Like good artists, we need to pay attention to the details, because its in the details that we see the distance between what’s actually there, and what we know, deep in our hearts, could be there if all was well. In our image saturated world, we don’t pay enough attention. Our... Read more
God knows there are plenty of problems and challenges, both around us in our own homes. It’s easy focus there, fighting our battles, or looking on in despair, anger, or cynicism as others, who are supposed to be fighting battles for us, don’t. The super committee isn’t so super after all. A nuclear Iran and a sluggish economy threaten; An Arab spring appears to be settling in for a long Arab winter of discontent; A Euro whose future is uncertain... Read more
I’m in the mist of preparing to a preach a sermon this weekend about God’s lavish love as revealed in His provision through creations beautiful and abundant gifts. I’m privileged to see these gifts often because of where I live. Just today, on a bike ride to and from the grocery store, there was a light show in the sky, painting the already vibrant trees in ever changing of hues of light. Nearly everywhere I looked, people were taking pictures... Read more
Luke 19:10 offers an interesting perspective on the word “occupy” because this is where Jesus tells the parable of the talents. A master hands over some money to various servants and tells them to “occupy” (King James) until he returns. Then, of course, some do that well, and bring the master a return on his investment, and others, not so much. “Occupy“: to fill or take up space. The word can mean many things I suppose, and there’s a sense... Read more
By now, many of us have heard of Dave Ramsey, and Financial Peace University. It’s a great program, as I share in this video. The essence of Ramsey’s plan, though, is ridiculously simple: don’t spend what you don’t have. It all makes sense, of course, and yet there’s something in us that makes us believe, sometimes, that life will better if we buy this or that – and suddenly we find ourselves harried and stressed because we’ve over-reached. Fine. Meanwhile,... Read more
Fibonacci Faith: Changing Everything
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