What do you say during times of crisis like these?  You want to say something revelatory and deeply meaningful to buoy the spirits of people and give them sufficient hope to lean into the challenges wrought of the crisis and valiantly press through them.  You want people to be reflective in a way that they are not during the calmer times so that … [Read more...]

Decisions.  Life is quite literally jam-packed with them.  We make them all of the time; literally one after another after another.  Hardly a single minute passes where we’re not thinking through and making some sort of decision.  Some decisions are huge and sweeping, amply possessing both the power and scope to impact our lives for the rest of our … [Read more...]

I am backwards.  I don’t think I’m backwards, I wouldn’t necessarily see myself as backwards, nor would I tell you that I’m backwards; but I’m backwards.  And the oddity of it all is that I actually see backwards as forwards.  From where I’m sitting it doesn’t look backwards at all.  However, in terms of how I conceptualize the realities of life as … [Read more...]

Easter is time of new beginnings.  More than that however, it is a time when we renew our belief in new beginnings. In a world of harsh endings and abrupt conclusions, Easter reminds us that there is always something new on the horizon even if we can no longer see a horizon.  Easter is a promise that no ending, regardless of how decisive it … [Read more...]

Easter is an incredibly rich time.  It is a reminder of the fact we are terribly fallen, but it is a far, far greater reminder of the phenomenal opportunity we have of being restored.  It is inconceivable that God would die on a cross and rise again. Despite our depravity, that death was indeed solely for us.  That is both the striking message and … [Read more...]

There is that exhilaratingly incessant drive within us, that unidentified but entirely electrifying spark, that rogue passion that is part of us but whose larger part is so expansive that it seems not to be part of us at all.  There are feelings that completely defy our capacity to create, but not our ability to feel.  There is a seemingly … [Read more...]

What we want is opposite of what we have.  We want world peace, but instead we are beset with world chaos.  We want the hungry fed, but millions go hungry and millions more die from that very hunger.  We want medical cures to the diseases that ravage lives, families and nations, but untold thousands perish hourly.  We want communities that are free … [Read more...]

Self-esteem is really the accumulation of beliefs that we have collected about ourselves.  We arrange these many beliefs in some sort of composite much like a tile mosaic.  Each piece is some shard taken from some experience or encounter or event or circumstance that has come our way at some time in our lives.  These many pieces are selected based … [Read more...]

We all throw around the idea of having a purpose, or not having one, or wondering if we’re supposed to have one, or whatever we’re wondering.  We wonder if we really need a purpose, and if so do we create it or does it already exist and we just haven’t happened to happen upon it just yet?  However or in whatever way we go about it, we all ponder … [Read more...]

In "The Self That I Long to Believe In," I wrote the following quote: “Don’t underestimate your capabilities and your resources.  Realize that the resources that you possess outclass and outweigh any flaw, whether perceived or real.  You can wound magnificence, but magnificence only becomes more magnificent in the wounding.” Your abilities … [Read more...]