by Guy Sayles | Mar 3, 2015 | Uncategorized
Over the last few years, through some hard and holy experiences, I have heard rising in my mind a few summaries of wisdom, summaries which crystallized discoveries I had made but did not know quite how to phrase. Compressed into them is a tangle of emotions: struggle...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 22, 2015 | Uncategorized
At Promise Academy, a school for at-risk students in the Harlem Children’s Zone, teacher Sophie Richard tutored a child to prepare him for a crucial test. One afternoon, when the young boy was tired and frustrated, she tried to offer him words of encouragement, but he...
by Guy Sayles | Feb 11, 2015 | Uncategorized
Dr. Seuss said that “Adults are obsolete children.” Many of us fear that obsolescence. We don’t want to be unrelentingly grim and somber and to shoulder so much “grown up” responsibility that it breaks our backs and our spirits. We want to keep or,...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 27, 2015 | Uncategorized
In his autobiographical essay, “The Crack Up,” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” And, physicist Niels Bohr once said: “A...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 18, 2015 | Uncategorized
Today is poet William Stafford’s birthday. In “The Way It Is,” William Stafford says: There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain about the thread. But it is...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 13, 2015 | Uncategorized
I’m thankful for some essential truths I learned as a child in Sunday School at the First Baptist Church of Conley, GA, truths so profound that they still challenge and guide me. They came in two songs:...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 11, 2015 | Uncategorized
Across nearly 38 years of ministry, I have never seen, both inside and outside the church, more restless seeking than I see just now. People are on a quest for something, for someone, higher, holier and more beautiful than they have yet encountered. ...
by Guy Sayles | Jan 3, 2015 | Uncategorized
I’ve made an effort to record my cancer reflections on my CaringBridge site and not here. Since this post acknowledges a kind of anniversary, I am making an exception to that practice. Here’s what I posted there this morning. On December 26, 2013, I was...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 25, 2014 | Uncategorized
The Christmas story tells us that the Savior of the world was born in nondescript Bethlehem, a hick town which had only one claim to fame: it had been the hometown of David, Israel’s greatest king. When Jesus was born there, the tiny town didn’t have much going for...
by Guy Sayles | Dec 22, 2014 | Uncategorized
“God sent the angel Gabriel to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.” Notice how the Gospel of Luke introduces us to this young woman: before he tells us...
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