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Making the Days Count

by | Oct 23, 2016 | 16 comments

This past week, in a conversation about my ongoing journey with Multiple Myeloma, a friend said, “If you hadn’t gotten this diagnosis . . . . ”  I didn’t hear the rest of her question, because I was so startled by my immediate internal response: “I wouldn’t want...

Being and Becoming Ourselves

by | Oct 14, 2016 | 0 comments

Though my children are well into their thirties now, my heart hears echoes of “Daddy, tell me a story.” I cherished story-time with Amanda and Eliot. Sometimes I read other people’s stories to them; it was a delight to watch their eyes widen as we traveled through the...

Autumn

by | Oct 7, 2016 | 16 comments

Bruce Springsteen is 67, and Bonnie Raitt will soon be. Eric Clapton is 71; so are Van Morrison and Steve Martin. Lucinda Williams is 63. David Letterman and Emmylou Harris are 69.Some of my students at Mars Hill University have grandparents who are younger than these...

Wordlessness and the Witness of Listening

by | Sep 24, 2016 | 3 comments

I’ve ransacked my mind and heart, looking through stacks of ideas and poking around in boxes of feelings, to find something helpful to say about the police shootings of African-American men in Tulsa and in Charlotte.I’ve come up empty.My search for words has confirmed...

Not-Doing as a Way to do What Matters Most

by | Sep 17, 2016 | 2 comments

What do we do (or not do?) when we feel hollowed-out and ground-down by life’s pressures and demands?Either George Patton or Vince Lombardi or Aphoristic Anonymous said that “fatigue makes cowards of us all.” Whether or not it always turns into cowards, it is...

Fifteen Years Ago and Now

by | Sep 10, 2016 | 2 comments

Fifteen years ago this weekend, I began my work as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Asheville. Far more significantly, our nation sustained the worst-ever terrorist attacks on United States’ soil.Those attacks left ongoing grief, anger, and anxiety in their wake....

On Not Settling

by | Sep 2, 2016 | 1 comment

Do we always have to settle for “it is what it is”—to surrender to the status quo?Too often, it feels like we do.  Inertia, habit, and sameness seem stronger than any hope we have for change.We know, for instance, what happens to New Year’s resolutions. We’re...

Escape Ordinary?

by | Aug 25, 2016 | 0 comments

Two intriguing entertainment venues have recently opened in downtown Asheville: Conundrum and Breakout. They create and offer adventures of escape, journeys from lost to found, and mysteries to explore.  Participants assume new identities as hostages, questers,...

How We Talk and Who We Are

by | Aug 12, 2016 | 0 comments

Before much of the new school year goes by, a child will come home with red, puffy eyes, sagging shoulders, and a wounded heart because of some ugly thing someone has said. I hope no one says to that child: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never...