(I’m happy to introduce my youngest daughter, Holly Dahlstrom, to you. Her joy, courage, and love of people inspire me. Her capacity to hear God’s voice and follow is a reminder to us all that “a better story” awaits, if we’ll but listen for the voice of our Maker and follow. You can follow all her Rwandan adventures throughout the summer here.) CEZ, OVC, ‘letter of invitation’, MOU, developing world, US Embassy, PEPFAR, cultural assimilation. These are words I never... Read more
(I’m happy to introduce my youngest daughter, Holly Dahlstrom, to you. Her joy, courage, and love of people inspire me. Her capacity to hear God’s voice and follow is a reminder to us all that “a better story” awaits, if we’ll but listen for the voice of our Maker and follow. You can follow all her Rwandan adventures throughout the summer here.) CEZ, OVC, ‘letter of invitation’, MOU, developing world, US Embassy, PEPFAR, cultural assimilation. These are words I never... Read more
I don’t know where the line originates. Maybe it comes from one of my children, who spoke to another of my children because they miss each other as they live their lives in Seattle, Germany, and soon, Rwanda. Wherever it comes from, it found its way into this little exchange between two of them, and is at the core of an element in their intertwined lives that brings me great joy. “Why are you so far away?” writes one. “Because... Read more
This is the weekend of Pentecost in the church calendar year, which means it’s the weekend we celebrate the church’s receptivity of the Holy Spirit. Just a few short weeks ago, the entire journalistic world was cooing over the May 21 predictions of the world’s end, a subject to which Jesus spoke just before his physical departure so many years ago. He made three things clear on that day: 1. Nobody would be able to predict the date of Christ’s... Read more
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. —Plato It’s true. It’s also true that the ‘everyone’ of whom Plato is speaking includes me, and you, and each of us. This makes his admonition all the more challenging because there are two edges to it: be kind…right in the midst of fighting your own battles. It’s tough to be kind when I’m in the trenches, dealing with my own pains and poverty, be they emotional, physical, relational,... Read more
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. —Plato It’s true. It’s also true that the ‘everyone’ of whom Plato is speaking includes me, and you, and each of us. This makes his admonition all the more challenging because there are two edges to it: be kind…right in the midst of fighting your own battles. It’s tough to be kind when I’m in the trenches, dealing with my own pains and poverty, be they emotional, physical, relational,... Read more
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 fat... Read more
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 fat... Read more
It’s been the kind of spring that’s made me grateful to be a sports fan. My soccer team has come with a couple of outcome changing goals in the final minutes of what we insiders call “stoppage time.” I’ve been waiting, since moving back to the Pacific Northwest in 1984, for Vancouver’s Canucks to win their first-ever Stanley Cup (that’s the big one, folks). They too have scored last-second goals that moved them from the loss column to the win, most... Read more
It’s been the kind of spring that’s made me grateful to be a sports fan. My soccer team has come with a couple of outcome changing goals in the final minutes of what we insiders call “stoppage time.” I’ve been waiting, since moving back to the Pacific Northwest in 1984, for Vancouver’s Canucks to win their first-ever Stanley Cup (that’s the big one, folks). They too have scored last-second goals that moved them from the loss column to the win, most... Read more
Fibonacci Faith: Changing Everything
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