Though I’m not well versed on the process of a caterpillar/ butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, I am fascinated by it. And all of us can agree on the beauty of the butterfly no matter the means of development. But recently I have been thinking again of how much the formation of our lives is… Read More Don’t Mess With the Mush: Life in a Chrysalis
We have now entered 2025. I love the freshness of a new year, the way it can signal a new beginning and new hope. Sadly, yesterday in various places in the world including New Orleans in the USA there were acts of violence. For all of us, it can be a challenge to hold onto… Read More A New Beginning in 2025
2050 is not far away. Only twenty six years from now. I’ll be 91 years old, and hopefully still kicking. As I write this today, there is a global outage of some internet systems causing over 5,000 flights to be cancelled. In Bangladesh over 100 have died in a series of protests over university enrollment… Read More The World in 2050: Finding Hope in the Future Amidst Present Struggles
Sometimes there are seasons when the need to express lament for personal or group pain seems even more acute. In recent weeks, our mission agency endured the worst accident in its history, with eleven key leaders killed in Tanzania. One of them we had known quite closely for about thirty years. Others were known to… Read More Do you feel at times like broken pieces? Lament is expressed in different ways
Two photos, before and after. The first is of a tree in our yard and the glories of the red leaves. The beauty of the fall colors in the Pacific Northwest in the USA are stunning. Reds, oranges, greens, yellows abound for several weeks in a feast of the splendor of life and creation. But… Read More What leaves are falling in your life?
I love to read, write and teach history. My love of history goes back to when I was about 10 years old. A few months ago a beloved uncle died, one who fed this developing passion by sending me history books in the mail from about that same age. One of the great encouragements of… Read More The Call of a Historian: To Lament with Hope
A few weeks ago, I reached the age of 64. And of course the obvious song that goes with that milestone is the Beatles hit, ‘Will you still need me, when I’m 64?’ I had heard it first when I was eight years old, when it was released on the Yellow Submarine album in 1967.… Read More ‘Will you still need me, when I’m 64?’
I have been thinking again recently about the dangers of cynicism. It can so easily grow in our lives, to the point where it overwhelms our hopes and turns our longings into dust. So many world and national events can contribute to a sense of powerlessness: slow recovery from the pandemic, or fears it will… Read More Have your longings for change turned into cynicism?
What a year. We started 2021 with covid uncertainty globally, and 2022 starts much the same. But there is good news also with vaccinations increasing and economic recovery happening in many nations. Personally this was a very difficult year with the death of several friends due to the virus both in India and the USA,… Read More There is hope for a tree (and you) in 2022
Two weeks from tomorrow is the first day of 2022. As I write this post, uncertainties and anxieties about the existing and new variants of covid-19 continue to cloud the new year outlook. Recently I’ve been reading an excellent book on the first three hundred years of the Christian Church, The Patient Ferment of the… Read More The Corrective of a Long View of History
An Invitation to Pause, Encounter & Grow Together.
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Encounters of Faith in Asia: Past, Present and Future 