The Word

“Maybe there is someone who was born into a family in which the parents and the children have never had any problems at all: no friction, no tension, no arguments, no disappointments, no thoughts that the other person should do or say anything different, ever.  I read recently that people who speak in front of […]

“What do you do when you have a tough decision to make?  My #1 favorite thing to do in those situations is to use the 10-10-10 rule, which has helped me find clarity every single time I’ve used it.  It comes from a book by Suzy Welch called 10-10-10.  It is actually surprisingly simple.  She […]

“Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do? The elder rose up in reply […]

“It was very effective.  Like some of you, I went to see the performance of Getting Away With Murder at the Westmoreland Players.  I didn’t know anything about the play before it started, which made it even more striking that I felt the effect of the play immediately.  I felt a gut response of “Get […]

“I have been a church nerd my entire life. Over the years I’ve read and studied scripture quite a bit, and I’ve even read the Bible cover to cover a couple of times. One of the things that appeals to me about the Bible is that it uses so many different images to tell us […]

“I thank God that you are here.  People have a wide variety of reasons for coming to church, from the very noble and spiritual to the very basic and mundane.  To me, though, it doesn’t matter what your reason for being here is, whether it seems like a good reason or a bad reason.  To […]

“I love my kids.  I love being around them to experience their quirky senses of humor, to hear their views on the world.  I like seeing the ways in which they are bright and creative and accomplished.  And even when they struggle or are disappointed, my heart goes out to them.  I am delighted to […]

“God gives us free gifts.  There are some people who would point out that the phrase “free gift” is redundant, and they’ve got a valid point.  I use the phrase anyway, though, as a way of distinguishing it from other things we also call gifts.  One of them is the transactional “gift”, in which the […]

We can ask, “Who sinned?”  Or we can ask, “Where can God’s works be revealed?” A mosquito is in the path of a hungry lizard.  The lizard eats it.  It’s painful for the mosquito, obviously.  But nothing evil has happened.  That’s just the way nature works.  A warthog is in the path of a hungry […]

“Clergy are encouraged to keep learning new things by doing continuing education, and rightly so.  There are a wide variety of classes, conferences, and other educational programs clergy can choose from to do this.  I recently got some mail about a seminar on how to increase church growth, and it said on outside of the […]