On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgment and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur. – Evelyn Underhill Sunday Stresses On Sunday morning my daughter insisted that she wanted to walk the dogs with me as...
As the snow has begun to melt and those stranded in the Birmingham area have begun to be able to return home, I was reminded of some flowers I saw last Spring. I had been driving through a gray day to visit someone when red flowers appeared in the median....
Note: This article appeared concurrently at ABPNews Blog. My last sermon of 2013 was named after a Pete Seeger song – “Turn! Turn! Turn!” Based on a Ecclesiastes 3, it is a text that I’ve mostly used for funerals. I wanted an opportunity to use the song in a non-funeral...
In honor of the people who, because of today’s snow storm, had to spend a good bit of time doing nothing, I thought I’d post this entry that originally appeared at the Religious Herald. In times when we are not able to do what we wish to be able to...
I just wanted to take a moment today and thank all the Liams in my life. Not that I know any personally, but my life has certainly been shaped by some Liams. And so, without much further ado, I present the top three Liams in my life and the lessons...
Note: This article originally appeared in the Religious Herald and on my former blog. However, in honor of the yoga class that meets at my church and the awesome way in which I just rocked my hip hop inspired cardio workout, I thought it an appropriate time for this post...
When my son first started attending his preschool, he would spend the car ride on the way “naming” friends. If he knew someone’s name, it meant that they were friends. For him there were two healthy categories: friends and people who aren’t yet friends. Those are two categories with which...
I’ve always loved the story of Jonah. I’ve found it to mean different things to me over the years, and I have no doubt to believe that it will mean different things to me in the future. It is an amazing story because it is one that has a very...
If you’ve never taken the opportunity to read any Wendell Berry, I highly suggest that you do so. His agrarian, contrarian ways are often the antidote for what ails us as overly-consumerized human beings caught in the cattle chute of modern productivity. In particular, I’m thinking about his poem “Manifesto:...
***Note: The poem and accompanying thoughts below are the very first blog post I ever wrote. I wrote it about three and half years ago and a few blogging attempts ago. I came across it as I was trying to clean up some files and decided to share it here....