by Guy Sayles | Mar 24, 2014 | Uncategorized
One of life’s crucial lessons is that we are responsible for how we use our ability to pay attention. We are stewards of our capacities to notice, to focus, and to consider people, the world around us, and God. We choose what to do with our...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 20, 2014 | Uncategorized
We learn some things sequentially, a step at a time: first the basics, then intermediate challenges and, only later, greater complexity. Like math, for instance: learn to count, to add, and to subtract; then, to multiply and divide. After this basic...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 11, 2014 | Uncategorized
“I know why the caged bird sings,” wrote Paul Laurence Dunbar. It is “a prayer the he sends from his heart’s deep core. . .a plea that upward to heaven he flings—I know why the caged bird sings.” Slaves in the cotton fields sang, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 24, 2014 | Uncategorized
In his novel, The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes has the narrator, Tony, ruefully compare his life to that of his old friend, Adrian: What did I know of life, I who had lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him? ...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 20, 2014 | Uncategorized
In the model prayer Jesus gave to his followers, Jesus urged us to talk with God about, among other things, how the world isn’t yet the way God wants it to be: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Latin American theologian Leonardo...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 17, 2014 | Uncategorized
When I was a boy, there were Sunday night services at the First Baptist Church of Conley, GA. When a service would finally end—too late to see the Wonderful World of Disney or to catch the end of the Ed Sullivan show—our pastor would call on one of our deacons...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 13, 2014 | Uncategorized
The title piece of William Stafford’s “New and Selected Poems” is “The Way It Is”:There is a thread you follow. It goes amongthings that change. But it doesn’t change.People wonder about what you are pursuing.You have to...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 10, 2014 | Uncategorized
Freedom, joy and generosity grow in us when we see ourselves in the true light of God’s abundant grace—when we allow God’s own generosity to heal our eyes so that we may see that there is more than enough, especially more than enough love, for all of us. Our...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 6, 2014 | Uncategorized
On my birthday last year, I wrote these words in my journal: I want to know more about the power of gentleness, the courage of vulnerability, the expansiveness of honored limits, the serious work humor can do, the faith which doubt inspires, and the...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 2, 2014 | Uncategorized
From a statement I made to my friends at First Baptist Church in Asheville today: I need your prayers for wisdom and for courage as I deal with some hard news I have recently received. Over the last week or so, following an array of tests, I have learned that I have...
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