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Thriving by our Limits

We’ve gotten about six inches of snow at our house, and forecasts call for a lot more. Earlier in the week, since it was likely that the roads between Asheville and Huntington wouldn’t be safely passable this weekend, I reluctantly bowed-out of preaching at Fifth...

Simplicity and the Good Life

Yesterday, I went to the first session of what I thought was my Introduction to the New Testament Class. For about 10 minutes, I gave a broad overview of the ways we’d approach our engagement with the scriptures. Then, a student spoke up and said: “I have you for New...

Creative Tension

This week, schoolchildren headed back to the classroom, the 12 Days of Christmas culminated in the Feast of Epiphany, and the reckoning with credit card bills from December’s shopping sprees has begun.  College football fans, especially in the South, made plans...

Beginning in Thanks

As the New Year begins, I am grateful for so much:Poetry, music, and “children’s books.”Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon.Restaurants where I don’t need a menu.Restaurants where I not only need a menu but a translator and guide.Our “puppy” (eight years old!),...

Affirmations for the Year–and the Life–Ahead

“I wouldn’t give you a nickel for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I’d give you my life for simplicity on the far side of complexity.”In a lecture he gave when I was a seminary student, Ernest Campbell, then the preaching minister at the Riverside Church in...

From the First Beginning

My great-grandmother Tiny (her name was actually Tina) was a “character.” One day, while sweeping her front porch, she slipped and fell down the three or four stairs that connected the porch to the walkway.  She hurt her ankle, but managed to get to her feet and...