Recent Posts
Good Friday - Holy Week Invitations
f Holy Week is such an important time for followers of Jesus, why do the days of the week have such curious names? “Maundy Thursday?” What is a Maundy? And “Good Friday?” How can we call this day good when the events that we remember seem so tragic?
On the “Maundy” issue, that strange word comes down to us from the Latin word, “Mandatum,” which means “commandment.” In the Upper Room, after washing his disciples’ feet and before sharing the Lord’s Supper, Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you: that you should love one another.” As a kid, I thought it was “Monday Thursday,” which is even stranger!..
The Madness of Crowds
Perhaps you’ve found yourself screaming at referees in a crowded stadium…and you’re not prone to verbal outburst. Or maybe you’ve found yourself singing at the top of your lungs at a Taylor Swift show… and you don’t even sing in the shower. Such is the madness of the crowds...
Clear Water in the Wilderness
Last week, I wrote about silence and solitude in our walk with God. This week, on a short retreat, I had the chance to live it—and saw it more clearly. With Good Friday in view, I was struck by Jesus’ quiet endurance: his silence, his suffering, and his patient waiting. In him, we see that waiting is not empty—it reveals.
What follows is a short parable, drawn from real experience, on that kind of waiting.
Shut Up for Once!
Without silence and solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him. - Henri Nouwen, Dutch Priest and Spiritual Director
I was first confronted with the spiritual dynamite of that quotation more than 20 years ago. As a person who plays a lot of music and preaches a lot of words, I was disturbed by the truth that all my noise making wasn’t necessarily drawing me closer to the Spirit of God...
Holy Sexuality
I read and re-read the Chronicles of Narnia so many times as a kid. I’m so grateful in retrospect for those imaginative stories that are both rollicking good reads and deep sources of truth about the world. Later this year, a high-budget Hollywood film version of The Magician’s Nephew will be released. I can hardly wait...
Perfect Peace
There’s a phrase that the Bible uses in Philippians 4:7 that has always captured my imagination, “The peace that passes understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”...