Month: August 2015

Yesterday, I spent some time in a hospital waiting room with a new dad. His baby boy came a full month early — it was a full moon — and while the little fellow is going to be okay, the anxiety of the event combined with the lack of sleep, concerns for his wife (she’s fine, too), and the overwhelmingness of being a new dad brought him to tears. Then laughter. Then back to tears. At one point, he looked up and said, “I never realized how much God loved me until right now.” Then he started crying again. Last … Read more…

Jim is a new friend, several years my senior and retired, a jack of many trades, master of several, and a pretty good guitarist. “I ought to be,” he said the other day; “I’ve been playing for 60 years.” Lisa and I met him last week at a long-term care facility, or what we used to call a nursing home. Jim isn’t a resident but he goes there the third Wednesday of every month to sing and play for those who are. He invited us to join him for one of his “gigs,” so we did. I hate going to … Read more…

Depending on which version you read, when Jesus encountered the man with leprosy in Mark 1:40 – 45, He was moved with compassion, filled with compassion, deeply moved, filled with pity, or indignant. The emotion Jesus felt changes ever so slightly, sort of like how certain colors in a painting seem to brighten and dominate or dim and recede as the angles and sources of light in the room vary. He was either close to tears because of the man’s suffering or hacked off at how sickness had ravaged this child of God. He felt sorry for the poor guy … Read more…

The angry season is upon us. For the next 15 months, we will be witness to attacks, accusations, allegations and indictments – both the rhetorical and, perhaps, the legal variety.  Yes, it’s Presidential Election time once again in the U.S. Granted, we have been blessed by our foresighted forefathers with a bloodless means of exchanging power. For this, we should be grateful. In other countries, the losers are tossed into a hole and covered with dirt. Here, they are tossed onto the lecture circuit and covered with money. So it could be worse. But it can also be tons better. … Read more…

When it begins, the concluding story of John’s Gospel feels like the kind of joke an old man tells. “So, these seven guys are in a boat about a hundred yards from shore. They fish all night and don’t catch a thing. Then, this other guy comes up and shouts . . .”. When the punch line comes, the old man laughs and you laugh with him, not because the joke is funny, but because he enjoys telling it so much. Six verses in, though, and you know this is more than an amusing tale.  The “other guy” tells them that if they throw … Read more…