I made a new ‘friend’ last year. A beautiful black Australian swan with a red beak. This last couple of weeks I have seen him again by a pond near where we are staying. I don’t have a name for my friend yet, yet already I have learned things and been comforted by his presence… Read More Who accompanies you on your journey of life and death?
This is my first blog post in several weeks. With my involvement in several nations since early in the year, time and more importantly energy to write has been lacking. But this post you are presently reading has been in the crafting for some time, at least in my brain and emotions. It concerns a… Read More It can be messy in the Belly of a Whale
It has been several weeks since I last wrote a blog post, primarily due to a post-covid intense season of travel and ministry. But even during this period, a question has been nagging me (as questions often do): When is empathetic listening not enough? Not just any kind of listening, but a quality of listening… Read More When is empathetic listening not enough?
The image with this blog post may be pretty disturbing, unless you love zombie and living undead movies. A hand reaching out from a grave. Perhaps I meant to publish this two weeks ago on Halloween and missed my timing? But as stark as it is, it resonates with a mental impression I had a… Read More Have we learned to grieve our losses and disappointments?
We’ve entered a new month. But the virus continues to spread in some countries and job losses mount. Hopes and dreams are still being put on hold, now with cancellations and postponements happening for events in the last months of 2020 as well. Most of us are tired. I’m tired of endless zoom calls, though… Read More Stop and smell the flowers, and don’t lose your humanity in these troubled times
Recently I received the following poetic lament from a dear man who is in our local church. I was so deeply touched by the authentic lament my friend Forest shares, yet how hope and humility fills it as well. Read it slowly, more than once. Add your prayer to his, lamenting and grieving your own… Read More Lament of a friend
In many parts of the world and states in the US, lockdowns continue. And the longer it goes on, with rising death counts and rising unemployment with losses of many kinds, words are getting scarcer. Are you tired of so many words? Too many well-meaning but at times necessary Zoom and Skype calls? Too many… Read More The Lost Language of Lament with Hope
What would it look like for the whole world to pause for a season? We are finding out as it unfolds before our eyes. There are three words on my mind and heart right now, words that may in a very small and inarticulate way express some of what we are facing as individuals, families,… Read More Pause, Reset, Shift in 2020
It is a quiet weekend. For many, a time of respite in the midst of busy lives and not unwanted enforced rest. But for many others around the world, a time of fear, even panic. The enforced isolation has brought also news of loss of jobs, however temporary, or the dilemma of children needing care… Read More Emptiness in the age of refugees and coronavirus
Eggshells. Brittle things, really. Easily broken. Useful only to throw out after eating the egg within. We may use the metaphorical expression that we are ‘walking on eggshells’, indicating how fragile or risky a relationship or social situation is. But the reality is that not only do we sometimes walk on them, but that we… Read More Walking on eggshells
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