The Molten Moment
While they were with him in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus’ disciples missed opportunities to grow in awareness, faithfulness, and love of their Master. They fell asleep while he was in anguished...
View ArticleA Shift of Perspective
A week after I turned 50 years old, I encountered those elephants. I had a heart attack. At the emergency room, I was quickly hooked up to an IV, an EKG machine, and an oxygen mask. The cardiac nurse...
View ArticleShifting Our Attention
Numerous studies have been conducted concerning pain and prayer, many of which confirm the efficacy of prayer. Even if we do not experience miraculous healing, there is a practical benefit from prayer....
View ArticleMore Than Watchmen Wait
During the Cold War, I served for two years on an army missile site in Germany. Vivid in my memory was the trip across the Atlantic on a troop ship filled with 1500 other men. For eleven days, I served...
View ArticleRepentance As A Way of Life
A dominant theme made up my spiritual life this past year: repentance. Smarting from what I perceived to be a set of injustices visited upon me, God happened to lead me to think of the injustices I...
View ArticleFeeding the White-Tailed Deer in Our Souls
“The resurrection of Jesus is the action at the core of all Christian spiritual formation,” writes Eugene Peterson.[1] Eugene makes the case that our sense of wonder is also central to spiritual...
View ArticleLearning Childlike Faith
One Saturday when my daughter Mara was six I was being a “good dad,” watching TV with her. At one point, an Ad Council public service announcement came on. It talked about the dangers of cigarette...
View ArticleJournaling to Discover the Stranger
There is a wise saying by Fr. Hilary Ottensmeyer that goes: “Until you are convinced that prayer is the best use of your time, you will not find time for prayer.” A few years ago, I found myself in a...
View ArticleSeeing Like Lewis
C.S. Lewis was a great scholar of medieval literature but also a man of the twentieth century. The twentieth century was filled with great good in the midst of great evil, and the culture Lewis...
View ArticleRed Tooth and Claw
There is a large park in which I like to hike within the city where I live. The park becomes less and less wild as the city closes in and the ecosystem changes, but a few years ago I had the good...
View ArticleHow Alice in Chains Changed My Love
During and after his high school years, my son went through a rebellious phase in which he and I didn’t get along very well. But one Saturday, we worked on a household project together and I asked Abe...
View ArticleGaining Through Spiritual Direction
My spiritual director has a simple aim: to deepen my relationship with God. This process seeks to grow my prayer life so that prayer becomes a regular and even constant practice. My director has not...
View ArticleThe Great Adventure of the Kingdom
Before I began to follow Jesus, I was fascinated—although at a distance — by what I knew of Christ’s life and teachings. Especially the Beatitudes interested me, and also what I heard from childhood...
View ArticleHealing a Distracted Heart
Many years ago, I went through a time of depression and distraction in which chronic pain, health struggles, and pressures at work ganged up on me. I was burned out. I decided I needed a complete break...
View ArticleBirth Pangs
My son and his wife are expecting a baby in March. I’m looking forward to being a delighted grandfather for the first time. Recently, we got to look at the fetus at 20 weeks through ultrasound...
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