a reflection on Psalm 131 I want a quieted soul. Not a slug-like soul, unable to respond quickly. Not a blob-of-oatmeal-like soul, passionless and benign by design. Helpful, yes, for heart-health and non-irritating for the gluten-resistant, but not noted for controlled creativity. I want a soul which, though capable of sleep-destroying worry and relationship-demolishing anger, has […]

I don’t very often title these messages I give on Sunday mornings. There’s nowhere to put the title, really, and there is no need. But I wrote a title for these words when I wrote them a few years back, because it seemed like the thing to do. Here’s the title: Three things to remember […]

God. Most of us feel like we’re not doing very well. Like Elijah, we think that everyone is against us, and everything is going wrong, and you aren’t keeping up your part of the bargain. The part that says “If we do good things, you’ll do good to us. And if we do bad things, you’ll […]

On my run the other day, I watched parents watching kids waiting for the bus on the first day of school.  Standing on the front step a block from the bus stop. Or getting the last photo as the bus comes around the corner. I remember the anxiousness and the relief and the excitement on […]

Here’s another post from the far distant past. Both in my writing, and in the life of Jesus. (Matthew 5:11-12) Jesus is clear, though, right from the beginning paragraphs of this sermon, that the new routine will hurt. Not the pain of working muscles that haven’t been used for awhile, though that is certainly true. […]