Today is Easter Sunday, which as a Christian I celebrate for the resurrection of Jesus, the foundational assertion and centerpiece of my faith- that God sent His Son into the world to die as a sacrifice for human sin, so that in His resurrection from the dead, Death would be dealt a mortal blow...
Read more →I think I’ve started six blog posts in the last month, and all of them with great seed ideas, but as I’ve tried to work through them, tapping ideas out onto the screen, the ideas have just wilted and died. I don’t know if this is writer’s block, or more broadly, just an alive-r’s...
Read more →When I was in junior high and early high school, I was, well, like I was in elementary school: pretty quiet, pretty awkward around lots of kids, and pretty unsure of where I fit in with people. I was pretty fortunate to be raised in a family where my folks let us try a...
Read more →If you want to know love, you must stand in the center of truth and be who you are, where you are, in life with others. It is only when the true me interacts with the true you that we can find a basis to trust each other, respect each other, and love each...
Read more →I’ve continued my slow trek through the Old Testament by striding through II Samuel over the last few weeks, and have been grateful to take a closer look at the life of David. There are moments when reading passages about him that I have breathed a sigh of relief and thought “If this guy...
Read more →I have a good friend who lost a sibling to cancer six years ago today. My friend loved her sister dearly, and she feels it every year when the anniversary comes up, if not only because she lost a sister, but also because that was one of the hardest years of her life, and...
Read more →It may be a stretch, but I think the best scripture passage I have heard that is probably most helpful for the addict is the story of Jesus with the Samaritan Woman, found in John 4:1-26. I became aware of this when I heard my cousin Jeremy Pummel preach a sermon from this passage...
Read more →When I was in college, I read a handful of books that stuck with me as personally significant. One of them stuck with me simply because of its title. In a literature survey course one semester, we read the biography of Catholic social activist Dorothy Day, entitled “The Long Loneliness”. I don’t remember much...
Read more →
It’s only fitting that I pause for a moment tonight to commemorate the life of my Grandma Myrt. Myrtle Scruggs, my mother’s mother, a sweet and gentle woman except when behind the wheel, passed away last night, July 11, 2012, at about 20 till midnight Kansas time. My mom said her sister Sharon was...
Read more →Tonight I had an interesting experience, which was a good one, but one I’ve had a number of times before, and every time I have it, it tests me. I went to dance with our dance club friends at a local club for the bulk of the early evening, and then I went with...
Read more →I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a man over the last year. Sadly, I realize I really hadn’t given this much thought throughout the earlier years of my adult life, and suddenly, now that I am smack in mid-life, I’ve started to ask the question. You know, you get...
Read more →Today I did something that I rarely (if ever) do, and it was, well, hard. I told an old friend I was disappointed in him. The moment for the acknowledgement began innocently enough. I received an email from him which had a short blurb telling me about a friend he had known from childhood...
Read more →For many people, today has probably been a pretty normal (if not a low-key) day outside of a few major news items. Today, disco icon Donna Summers passed away. Tomorrow, Facebook drops its I.P.O. and reaps a whirlwind of capital. Those are the highs and lows of the news day for today, a...
Read more →After maintaining decorum by posting notes five nights in a row (6 if you count the day before we left), I ran into a mental block called tiredness and stalled on my up-to-the-day reporting. What follows is my effort to recover my memories of what happened on day 6. After breakfast and a morning...
Read more →Tomorrow my brother and I get to drop everything in our lives, jump in a truck and drive to Denver, and then on early Thursday morning, we’ll hop a plane to Atlanta and then fly on to Bayámon, Puerto Rico. This trip has been a few months in the making, but in reality, it...
Read more →I was first introduced to pastor Tim Keller and his writings last summer after picking up a little book that talked about how not to live as a prodigal in the church. I had heard for some time about how good Keller’s stuff was for the mind and the heart, and so after finally...
Read more →