The holidays bring people together. Parties, various celebrations, innumerable gatherings of various kinds all present us with opportunities to warmly engage people we rarely see throughout much of the year. Indeed, it is a natural time of joining and rejoining. Yet, in all of the merriment and festivities, old issues are given renewed space and … [Read more...]
Surviving the Holidays: Memories
Speaking to Our Deepest Humanity Christmas and New Years are both rich with meaning and filled with ornate tradition. Christmas beautifully embodies and subsequently displays a desperately needed hope that something bigger is with us, that ‘God is with us’ despite how terribly difficult our journey might be, how terrifyingly lonely we so … [Read more...]
What we Worship – The Things We Bow Down to
Uniqueness – Not as License
In a culture that advocates for a broad array of freedoms, we sometimes struggle with understanding the appropriate parameters for the exercise of those freedoms. When we are presented with something new that we wish to explore, we may have a difficult time understanding how far we can explore this thing without impeding on the rights of others and … [Read more...]
Uniqueness – Looking Beyond Labels to See Strengths
Too often we label our “uniqueness” with other less than flattering adjectives such as “weird,” “odd,” “bizarre,” or something similar. Some expressions of uniqueness are done in less than wise and informed ways that may make themappear a bit questionable and therefore generate hurtful labels. These labels then can be inordinately diminishing in … [Read more...]
Trust – The Personal Characteristics that Build it Strong
If I take trust out of a relationship, I have effectively gutted that relationship to its death. Trust is an indispensable ingredient in relationships, regardless of the type or nature of the relationship. Without trust, we have absolutely nothing left. When it is gone our goal is not to rebuild the relationship, rather it is to rebuild trust so … [Read more...]
Traditions- A Sorely Needed Grounding
Traditions are too frequently viewed as antiquated, outmoded, outdated, and entirely outclassed by all that is vogue and new. They are something of a dusty past that is better relegated to the catacombs of days gone by. Traditions are museum fillers that we might visit when nothing else seems to capture our fancy. Yet, traditions give us a … [Read more...]
Tom’s Clocks – The Privilege and Opportunity of Time
One thing we tend to do with time is fight it. We see it as the immovable and unstoppable adversary that grants us no reprieve, that is entirely unsympathetic to our causes, and that is relentlessly ticking off time until our time is out. Because of its very nature and character, and because of our perception of time relative to our life we are … [Read more...]
To Love or Not to Love – That is the Question
The Worst Slavery – Slavery to Ignorance
We have long left slavery to the faded tin-type photos that tell the story of a Civil War long ended. We know that slavery exists in our world today, but it seems to remain some left-over piece or part of a history long over. Yet we are all enslaved by something. We might not want to admit it, but we walked chained and shackled by something. And … [Read more...]
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Craig Lounsbrough
M. Div., LPC