It’s Christmas, so it’s as good a time as any to think about the holiday, and what it means to me. It is, after all, besides a commercial boon, a religious holiday, focused on the birth of a child according to a very popular book, who was all human and, at the same time,...
Read more →This morning, I needed to write, and I wasn’t sure about what, so I have sat here looking around in a little coffee shop downtown, across from the UNM campus. It’s a converted house that is loosely filled with mix-and-match tables and chairs. The wood floors are nice. The walls are white or soft...
Read more →
My guess is we all have those moments when it feels like the walls of life are pressing in on us. Or, rather, the walls of being alive press on us. Decisions squeeze us, and choices ask for a decision. Sometimes, it’s the wheeze of mortality heard way to close to us, through a...
Read more →It was 2009 when I came across Somaly Mam’s heartbreaking memoir “The Road of Lost Innocence”, in which she described in detail her traumatic early years after she was taken from her family and village by a “family friend” into a foreign city to be first a slave, and then made a prostitute in...
Read more →
It’s the middle of April, and so Easter is upon us again. Active in church, I can easily forget the big picture of it all, and so when Easter comes around, I try to take some time to remember- why is church important? Why do I pour so much time and thought into this...
Read more →I’ve had several good conversations with a work colleague this week about Christianity, and how it should impact a life. These conversations grew out of some reflections I had talking with a friend and also from considering the experiences shared by others I have known that felt similarly: Christianity is negative. The key complaint...
Read more →
Today’s been one of those days so far. A Monday after a rare cold and snowy weekend in Albuquerque, I thought I felt rested and fired up for a good work day today. I knew I was coming to work with a few clear items I needed to hammer out- and I thought I...
Read more →
Tullian had a post today on his blog about the centrality of the gospel in the Christian’s life, and how for many, it is viewed as simply the gate one passes through to join the club, instead of as the path one must walk down into Christ’s kingdom. He makes the point that preachers...
Read more →
Driving to and from work today kind of describes how the ride of my life has felt over the last few weeks. It all started yesterday afternoon as I drove my truck home from an event after church. In the lower gears, I noticed as I went to up-shift and down-shift, it felt like...
Read more →I had a friend message me today on Facebook, asking me if I could give her the link to a blog a like. I had shared a link to it earlier in the week, and I guess it stood out enough for my friend to remember it to ping me to ask me about...
Read more →It’s a hard but sad fact that people- at least most people- move in and out of our lives in a relatively short time. Some individuals are luckier than others in that they have better luck- and better skills- at establishing and fostering relationships so that those they have with others don’t fade so...
Read more →Appreciative of systemists like James Fowler, I offer here an artificial framework for thinking about grace. Recognizing that God and His workings are mysterious, this post in no way suggests that I have “figured out” how God sprinkles His grace into the events of human lives. When He does, though, this article suggests how...
Read more →At one time a few years back, my mom liked to share the sweet little story she had of one day talking on the phone to my sister’s son when he was young. She was asking him some questions about his life, and after answering a few, I guess he lost interest in the...
Read more →As I have been digging through literature on male development and masculinity, I find I return to think about the concept forwarded by Eldredge and touched on by other authors: that those men who grow up with a stunted or damaged masculinity somewhere along the way were either abused or neglected in that area...
Read more →Recently, I’ve returned to the question of what it means to be a man (and equally, what it means for a woman to be a woman), and so I decided I needed to skim the books in my library on the topic and in each, pull the salient points they offer about Biblical manhood...
Read more →