300 words a day

“…Came from Nazareth to the Jordan and was baptized…” This is very simple story-telling. When we are listening to a story, we want the details. We want to know what each person is thinking. We want to know motives. We want each piece of the back and forth of the debate. We want to know […]

God. It’s the first Sunday in Lent and we are already feeling like giving up.I don’t mean giving up something for Lent. I mean simply giving up.We have lost family members and friends and people in our communities.We’ve lost power and confidence and certainty. We need you. You are, we read, outside of time.With you, […]

I’ve had a complicated history with dentists. When I was young, my dentist was in the “this won’t hurt long, you don’t need a shot, do you?” I did. Eventually, I found a series of dentists who were offered the understanding and the pain-avoidance (and the headphones playing music really loud) that helped me survive […]

You already know this. You and I sit with people in the middle of really hard moments. In moments when numbers and percentages and policies and rationales fall away and we feel the sobs in the person next to us. This person, this moment, this diagnosis, this death. The response to “I’ve never had to […]

From my friend Rich Dixon: Last week I talked about teaching calculus and “understanding” infinity. Students would describe “approaching infinity” or “jumping to infinity.” The symbol for infinity ( ∞ ) somehow became a special really big number. Incomplete metaphors are the normal reaction when we’re faced with a concept beyond comprehension. I told students […]