by Guy Sayles | Apr 16, 2011 | Uncategorized
Insider. . . outsider Male. . . .female Light. . .dark Weak. . . strong. Faith. . . doubt Life. . . death Courage. . . fear Love. . . hate. Yes. . . no These tensions rest close together in our minds; many of them are also entangled, like interconnected roots, in the...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 8, 2011 | Uncategorized
I need help. I was wrong. I don’t know. Those three statements are crucial to emotional and spiritual maturity. All three of them are confessions of our humanity—of the limits on our strength, goodness, and knowledge. I need help: I can’t go it alone. I was wrong: I...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
I wrote the following poem in response to something I heard from my grandmother over supper one night and to a glimpse of a faded black and white photograph of her husband, my grandfather, standing in front of a motorcycle. Years after my grandfather died, at a dinner...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 30, 2011 | Uncategorized
A sampling of the books I have read in the last month or so and/or am currently reading. POETRY I recently finished Christian Wiman’s new book of poems, Every Riven Thing and Galway Kinnel’s Three Books: Body Rags; Mortal Acts, Mortal Words; The Past. Wiman is the...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 23, 2011 | Uncategorized
It was a long time ago now, but I clearly remember the day one of my seminary professors came into the classroom, put his lecture notes and books down on the lectern with a thud, scanned the room with an intense and serious look on his face, and asked: “How many of...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 14, 2011 | Uncategorized
When I say leader, what images flash across your mind? For me, the word conjures up quite a crowded room full of people, many of whom are so different from each other that they wouldn’t be very comfortable with my having gotten them together. There’s George Patton...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 7, 2011 | Uncategorized
Love depends on knowledge and acceptance. Love takes the time to find out who you really are: what you think and believe, what you question and doubt, what puzzles and perplexes you, what delights and enlivens you, where you’ve been, what’s happened to you, where you...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
Fear is faith’s adversary. Fear makes us see the world as a dangerous place, shrouded in darkness and stalked by death. So, we build thick walls around our hearts and high-fences around our loved ones. To protect ourselves from hurt, we push aside adventure. To...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 22, 2011 | Uncategorized
Early on, I bought the idea—maybe you bought it, too—that the older I got and the more I learned, the more I would know for sure. As time went by, I’d have more understanding and fewer questions. I liked that idea, so I stocked the warehouse of mind full of facts. By...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 16, 2011 | Uncategorized
A final post about “my witness,” brief reflections on truths I have learned from my experience with Jesus. Our world, torn asunder by division and hostility, needs people who will embrace Jesus’ calling to be peacemakers, not just peacekeepers and conflict-avoiders....
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