by Guy Sayles | Nov 26, 2019 | Uncategorized
Good leaders (good, as in “worthy,” not merely “effective”): shoulder, rather than shirk, responsibility.treat power and influence as entrustments, not entitlements, given by followers for the purpose of serving the common good.make tough calls for the sake of justice...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 15, 2019 | Uncategorized
This article appeared in the October 15, 2019 edition of the Center for Healthy Churches newsletter. One of the Desert Fathers, St Anthony (251-356) said: “A time is coming when people will go mad and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack that one and...
by Guy Sayles | Oct 8, 2019 | Uncategorized
“The Crowd” (1928) Every four weeks, I spend several hours at the Cancer Center, seated in a less-than-comfortable-but-by-now-familiar recliner, to receive an infusion to treat Multiple Myeloma. Recently, as the medicine dripped slowly into my bloodstream,...
by Guy Sayles | Sep 30, 2019 | Uncategorized
A lot of us fear that we are “not enough”; and, in some of us, that fear exists alongside anxiety that we are “too much.” Whether we feel that we lack something which would qualify us for acceptance or that we have an excess of something which threatens people who...
by Guy Sayles | Aug 14, 2019 | Uncategorized
Five years and eight months ago, in January of 2014, I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow I’ve nicknamed “Frank.” Off and on since then—intensely in the first 27 months and consistently over the last 9 months—I’ve received...
by Guy Sayles | Jun 30, 2019 | Uncategorized
Last week, we had the trees in our yard trimmed for the first time in eighteen years. They had grown tall and full; their branches tangled into each other. Sprawling limbs brushed against our roof and our neighbor’s. Using their chainsaws like sculptors’ chisels, the...
by Guy Sayles | Jun 1, 2019 | Uncategorized
I recently spoke briefly at Mission Health’s Cancer Survivor’s Day. Regular readers of my reflections will recognize some of these themes, but I post these remarks in case they might prove helpful. 5½ years ago I learned that I have multiple myeloma. For...
by Guy Sayles | May 20, 2019 | Uncategorized
This morning, I make, and elaborate on, a simple but contestable claim: It matters. It matters: your life, their lives, and the life of the earth; who you are and who you become; what you do and what you leave undone. It matters how you spend or waste time; how you...
by Guy Sayles | Apr 6, 2019 | Uncategorized
A couple of weeks ago, I posted some reflections on my five-year journey with cancer, occasioned by an invitation to speak with a blood cancer support group, my 62nd birthday, and my recent decision that the illness makes it wise for me to “retire” from teaching at...
by Guy Sayles | Mar 30, 2019 | Uncategorized
Yesterday, at First Baptist Church of Greensboro, I shared these reflections on the theme of “journey,” as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina celebrated 25 years: We are on a journey from birth to death to life, from the home we’ve known...
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