Weren’t the struggles of Covid-19 enough? The lockdowns, the layoffs, the careers and dreams postponed or ended. And just as the impatience for a new normal grew to a breaking point, three weeks ago in Minneapolis, Minnesota happened. George Floyd. Protests grew by the day, demands for change that are not new. And they still… Read More Trust in the slow work of God
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
As I write this post there are about twelve hours left in the year and the decade. Asia in several areas has already entered 2020. A word that has kept coming to me as we enter a new year is shift. There are global shifts ahead of us in the coming year and certainly in… Read More End of year and decade musings
It is a month of social interaction, whether related to the lead up to Christmas or Hannukkah or Kwanzaa, or to this coming week’s New Year’s Eve celebrations. That means getting invited to parties, special dinners, food-filled celebrations. Or not. Since 1996 a social anxiety condition called FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) has been known… Read More FOMO or FOBLO????? Or Both?
It is the Christmas season. A time of celebrating a new birth that would enlighten the darkness, bring hope to the hopeless. It is also a time of gift giving and receiving, even for those of little or no religious faith. Two of the greatest gifts in my life happen to be also the two… Read More Shakings in the two largest democracies on earth
Sometimes we need a sledgehammer to break up our hard or fallow ground. Throughout my life, since I first picked up the small book Knowledge of the Holy when I was a high school student, a virtually unknown Chicago pastor named A.W. Tozer has been that for me. Tozer did not travel far from his… Read More Prayer is no substitute for obedience
Ever been in a gathering (or one on one) when someone starts sharing pain from their story, whether personal or group related? Or has that person ever been you? What usually happens? Well, quite often one or more people listening will feel compelled to share their own story of pain, however dissimilar, hoping somehow that… Read More Why do we have to ‘identify’ when someone is sharing their pain?
In the art of blogging, (which I’m still learning!), the pros say that having a provocative headline question can gain readers. Did it work? Does this headline cause you to feel a degree of pushback, especially if you are from the USA? Some may immediately disagree, wanting to say how friendly and polite the nation… Read More Is the United States a Cruel Nation?
I’ve been thinking lately about kindness. Actually about how unkind we are in our public and political discourse. I’m writing this post in the USA, but it is certainly true in other nations as well. Yesterday, with the graves of the Normandy D-Day invasion in the background, the US President in an interview savaged his… Read More How low will our public discourse go? The importance of kindness.
Being in-between destinations, not part really of either one, has a special pain to it. Another word for it is transition, and transitions can be of durations as short as a day to ones lasting many years. Living in the in-between space is living in the margins, hoping that somehow there is hope ahead and… Read More The Pain of In-betweenness
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