When I was a kid growing up there was a professional surfer named Joey Buran. Buran was one of the top athletes in the sport and photos of him filled the surfing magazines of the day. As a teenager, I had a poster of him at the famous Pipeline wave in Hawaii hanging on my […]
Several years ago now on a Saturday, I took my daughters Emily and Noelle and their friend Katie to help out with a local ministry. This ministry is an outreach to parents who have children who are Autistic or in wheelchairs or both. Every third Saturday of the month, volunteers try to teach these kids […]
Roy Lloyd, a Lutheran minister, once interviewed Mother Teresa. He asked her, “What’s the biggest problem in the world today?” She answered without hesitation, “The biggest problem in the world today is that we draw the circle of our family too small. We need to draw it larger every day.” What would it mean to […]
There is this passage in the Bible, from 1 Kings, chapter 3, where we learn that King Solomon has a dream. In the dream, God appears to him and says, “Ask for anything you want…” And Solomon makes this amazing statement: “I am only a little child; (he was young at that point, but not that […]
Jesus once said, “Do not judge, unless you want to be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1-2) This teaching, though it is not always easy, is a gift. It’s not that we shouldn’t hold […]
One of my favorite artists, John Severson, said that his personal mission statement was this: “Make it a beautiful life.” I love that. I believe he meant that beyond the art he created. Make it a beautiful life for yourself and everyone else you meet. In part, simply by the way you live… through your […]
Some time ago, I read about the funeral of Charlemagne who was one of the most powerful Christian rulers of the early Middle Ages. After his death, there was an enormous funeral procession from his castle to the cathedral at Aix. When the body arrived, with a lot of pomp and circumstance, it was met […]
Psalm 59:10 reads, “My God in his steadfast love will meet me…” In the King James Version, it reads, “The God of my mercy shall prevent me…” Prevent in old King James English means to go before. British Journalist Hugh Redwood once described a time in his life when he was under considerable strain and […]
In the Gospel of Mark, as Jesus is just beginning his ministry, we find him walking along the shore of the sea of Galilee. He comes across some fishermen, everyday kind of people, and he says to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Crazy as it sounds, these men, James […]
Yesterday, we reflected on expressing our anger our grief, and our questions to God. Faith that is able to do so, is often profound. It is also biblical. What happens if we bury our anger or grief? They have a way of reemerging, don’t they? Often in really unhealthy ways. Even by taking out on […]
