In English, we slur words and, over time, create new ones. You all became y’all and Christ’s Mass became Christmas. The same thing happened with the Old English phrase Godes sonde. It was a way of…
A high view of contentment was a consistent pattern across the ages. This, of course, does not mean that existence was easy and the streets filled with smiling citizens. Quite the opposite. Throughout most of history, life has been marked by…
For almost a month, I sat with Jeremiah, who sat with God. I let him do the talking. I read the same passage out of the third chapter of Lamentations every morning, until I almost knew it by heart…
Relationship in the body of Christ is where we grow best. Of course, we must pursue our relationship with God day in and day out as well: having a quiet time in the morning, an intentional time with God, and participating in regular worship. But community is vital for…
Jesus longed for his disciples to know from personal experience the joy of sharing in his Father’s love. It was this love that sustained Jesus in life and death; it would be this very same love that would sustain his friends in life and death as well…
Like wind and rain that erodes rock little by little, daily life exacts a toll. Resources are depleted. Buffers wear thin. Slights, once brushed off, laid aside to press on with the tasks at hand, now sting deeply as life closed in…
Our ever-increasing engagement with technology is deepening neural pathways that make it difficult to maintain practices that are essential for soul care. For example: Our habit of continually switching from one thing to another on our device…
Feelings are a primary blessing and a primary problem for human life. We cannot live without them and we can hardly live with them. Hence they are also central for spiritual formation in the Christian tradition. Feelings live on the front row of our lives like…
A perfect new luna, sitting alone in the dark, will make you hold your breath. God made fancier moths but none more ethereal. Lunas are like sea glass or frost on the first two weeks of a garden. They are like Rivendell and powdered sugar. Their wing tails cross at the ends like lace-trimmed sock ankles on…
When rain falls on a hill, the water drains off. How does it drain off? In rivulets. Initially, they are just small rivulets, but each time rain falls, the rivulets cut deeper and deeper. They can become deep chasms.
Now let’s compare these rivulets with thought patterns in our minds. The longer we think along any given line…