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Used Books, Annie Dillard, and the Vanity of Life

Each year at this time, our town holds a used book sale at the local library. Like Jesus’ sojourn in the grave, it usually lasts for three days. Hardcover books sell for two dollars, softcover books are a dollar, and paperbacks are fifty-cents. On the third day, the books aren’t resurrected. They are left on the lawn for those who pass by to take home for free.

I look forward to the sale…

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#Annie Dillard #books #Ecclesiastes #used books #vanity #writing

God, Be Merciful to Me

I am a sinner. I don’t deny it. But most of the time I don’t think much about it either. I don’t seem to obsess about sin the way the ancients used to, at least not about my own sins. I don’t punish myself or go to extreme measures to fight sin off. Most of the time, my sin feels more like a low-grade fever more than it does a raging fire. Its presence is an ongoing irritation that may hinder me…

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#God be merciful to me #grace #Jesus prayer #mercy #sin

Fame is a Fickle Food

The other day I heard a guest on NPR describe blogging as old technology. Weblogs were what people used to do in the days before social media. He was a young, hip entrepreneur. His company sells T-shirts, or as he called it “gear,” so I suppose he would know. I was startled to find this out. But I guess I should have known. My age should have told me that what I thought was cutting edge was…

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#blogging #Fame #humility #ordinary #ordinary life #writing

God's Emotional Life

God’s Emotional Life

My father was a man of his times. He lived in an age when dads were not expected to be “engaged” with their children. In the 1950s, fathers weren’t in the delivery room coaching their wives as their children were being born. Not those fathers. They were all in the waiting room, smoking cigarettes. Parenting in that era was far more detached than it is today.

Like most children, I was happy to…

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#Divine Attributes #Emotion #Emotions #God #Impassibility

God's Emotional Life

God’s Emotional Life

My father was a man of his times. He lived in an age when dads were not expected to be “engaged” with their children. In the 1950s, fathers weren’t in the delivery room coaching their wives as their children were being born. Not those fathers. They were all in the waiting room, smoking cigarettes. Parenting in that era was far more detached than it is today.

Like most children, I was happy to…

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#Divine Attributes #Emotion #Emotions #God #Impassibility

Monotone Worship

The worship wars are over. In church after church that I visit, we all seem to be singing the same handful of songs. To me they seem more like chants and shouted slogans than anything else. Melodically uninteresting and lyrically unimaginative, the music we are singing in the church these days isn’t composed, it is compiled. It feels more like the work of a committee than it does the creation of…

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#culture #music #worship #worship wars

Practicing the Present: The Art of Being Self-Conscious

Before we had to put her down, my dog, Gidget, never seemed to worry about the future. She did have a sense of time—or at least she seemed to know when I was due home from work. If she thought at all about the future, it was never very far into the future. And she didn’t worry about death. Right up to her last breath, she never gave it a thought. When we took her to the vet to have her put down,…

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#anxiety #Future #Mindfulness #Planning #Practicing the Presence of God #Practicing the Present

Leaving Home

We put our house up for sale a few weeks ago. It sold quickly, but it unnerved me to have strangers peering into our closets and judging us for even a few days. As anyone who has purchased a home can tell you, the experience is just as awkward for the buyers. Perhaps even more awkward. Buying a house is like getting engaged after a round of speed dating. You spend a few minutes with the object of…

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#home #location #place #rootlessness

Practicing the Present: Race Among the Ruins

When I was a pastor, I found that the hardest part of visiting church members at the hospital was leaving them in the same condition I found them in when I entered the room. It seemed to me that my visits should make a difference. If they did not, what good were they? On each occasion I read Scripture, spoke words of comfort, and prayed. Yet when I was done people seemed no better off.

It’s…

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#Circumstances #Mindfulness #Practicing the Present #trials

Practicing the Present: The Courage of the Ordinary

When my friend Ray was diagnosed with cancer, he started reading obituaries. He found comfort in the newspaper’s daily litany of the departed. Somehow it made him feel less alone. Like a pilgrim who is traveling in company, instead of someone who stumbles along a difficult path by himself. It was the ordinariness of the thing that helped him the most.

I feel something similar whenever I thumb…

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#ambition #Mindfulness #Practicing the Present

Practicing the Present

I am a sucker for books and movies about time travel. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, the DeLorean in Back to the Future,and any Star Trek episode in which the crew of the starship Enterprise travels back to the twentieth century—I love them all. But over the years, I’ve learned a few important things about time travel. For example, as far as I can tell from these books and movies, backward is…

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#Christian life #Mindfulness #Practicing the Present #Spiritual Life

Oh, Hell.

In the early days of my walk with Jesus, I did not believe in Hell. Or at least, I did not want to acknowledge the reality of Hell. I had heard about Hell and even prayed a prayer to Jesus to be saved from Hell as a child. But by the time I began to live seriously for Christ in my early 20’s, I had pushed that aspect of the gospel to the margins of my thinking. I was more interested in knowing…

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#Christ #cross #Hell #judgement #salvation

Bread & Circuses

The recent implosion of James MacDonald’s ministry is a sobering reminder of how easily beguiled the church is by a pretty voice. Not only is the unfolding debacle painful to watch, it also ought to send a chill of fear down the spine of pastors and church leaders. MacDonald was no heretic. He was and is a biblical conservative. His failure, if the reports are true, was one of leadership…

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#Harvest Bible Chapel #James MacDonald #pastoral ministry #pastors #shephderding

Get Out of Your Discomfort Zone

The other day a friend asked me, “What are you doing to challenge yourself?” “Nothing,” I replied. “I don’t believe in it.” He thought I was joking. If I was joking, it was only a little. I don’t believe in the theology which says that God’s chief aim for us is to move us out of our comfort zone. I think His purpose for us lies in the opposite direction.

Before I tell you what I mean by this,…

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#comfort zone #cross #discipleship #get out of your comfort zone #rest #The Radical Pursuit of Rest

Get Out of Your Discomfort Zone

The other day a friend asked me, “What are you doing to challenge yourself?” “Nothing,” I replied. “I don’t believe in it.” He thought I was joking. If I was joking, it was only a little. I don’t believe in the theology which says that God’s chief aim for us is to move us out of our comfort zone. I think His purpose for us lies in the opposite direction.

Before I tell you what I mean by this,…

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#comfort zone #cross #discipleship #get out of your comfort zone #rest #The Radical Pursuit of Rest

Life After Death by Meeting

I have spent a significant portion of my thirty-four years in ministry attending meetings. Sometimes I was in charge of the meeting. At other times, I was a reluctant participant, required to attend by the nature of my work. These experiences prompted me to try and understand the way groups and organizations work. Over the years I have come to few conclusions.

Those who lead the meeting…

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#Committees #Meetings

Ugly Duckling Theology

I was looking at the results of a major survey of pastors the other day and noticed a trend. Pastors of small churches are more likely to be less energized by their ministry than those who serve large churches. They are also more inclined to question their calling. The message seems to be twofold. First, large churches are more fun than small churches. Second, those who serve small congregations…

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#church size #Churches #Pastoral Leadership #pastoral ministry #pastors #small churches

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