Disagreeing With Love

I’ve been doing a lot of reading, thinking, and praying about learning to disagree better (as opposed to moving away from each other – literally – and throwing stones from my bubble. Tim Muehlhoff’s “I Beg to Differ: Navigating Difficult...

Pastoral Letter to the Saints at Saint Paul’s

Dear Saints of St. Paul’s, This has been a tumultuous week for United Methodists, during which international delegates to a special General Conference passed (by a 438-384 margin) a Traditional Plan retaining language in our Discipline (first approved in 1972) that...

Can We Talk?

How to Have Difficult Conversations – Speaking the Truth in Love Polarization threatens to destroy our nation, our communities, churches, and our homes. We don’t know how to explore our disagreements with others, and our fear keeps us separated. Because of...

Welcoming the Essential this New Year

Near the end of 2017, I enjoyed reading Greg McKeown’s book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. The concept of saying “No” to trivial pursuits in order to embrace one’s calling resonated with me, particularly as a firstborn whose...

Quest for a Cure

As of early February, after successfully completing the Tour of Sufferlandria, 2017, I felt compelled to train and ride a Sufferlandrian Knighthood DO (not an attempt). This involves riding 10 back-to-back video workouts (with no more than 10 minutes break in between...

Psalm of Psalms

One of a series chronicling a Psalm Pilgrimage. Went to bed Monday evening as a winter storm brewed up the east coast – while another storm brewed in my spirit. I had been looking at word clouds on Pinterest – particularly ones from books of the Bible,...

Psalm Portal, Part III

Reading N.T. Wright’s The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential this morning, I came across the line: …the question is more how we can find our way into their world… (page 6) This is what I’ve been struggling to articulate that happens...

Psalm Portal, Part II

From my Prayer Journal, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2016 – Advent II Some extraordinary things have been happening with the Psalms, this Advent season. It probably began in earnest when I discovered an instrumental album interpreting Psalm 24 – Lift Up the Gates. That was...

Psalm Portal: Part I

From my Prayer Journal, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016 – Advent I Had a breakthrough this am while stumbling on a new/old Psalm find: Ascend – Prayer Instrumentals (meditating on the ten verses of psalm 24 by the contemporary praise band, The Ramp). I already had...