• Faith,  O, Humanity!,  Reading,  The Bible

    The Real YOU Abides

    Our souls are the real, substantive part of who we are. Our bodies are the material manifestation. I’m reading through my journal written ten years ago and came across the above statement I had written to summarize what I was learning. At the time, I was attending a Bible study in a friend’s home, a study that referenced George MacDonald’s writing. Both C.S. Lewis and Oswald Chambers had been greatly influenced by George MacDonald, a writer in the late nineteenth through early twentieth century. Lewis called him his “master” and wrote an anthology for 365 days composed of MacDonald’s writings. At the time, I was preparing to teach at a…

  • Journaling,  O, Humanity!

    Smokehouse Creek Fire: After the Smoke Cleared

    As it happened, last week I visited Pampa one week to the day after the historic fires burned across the Texas Panhandle. I lived in Pampa for twenty-five years. It’s where my children grew up. It’s where people I love still live, and a few days spent with friends feeds my soul. It hurt my heart in places I didn’t know I had, seeing the land, the Big Country, burned from horizon to horizon. I could not know who or what lay in the path of this destructive force that devoured lands and properties. I could not imagine the fear that blanketed the surrounding towns, towns I know by name,…

  • Faith,  The Bible

    Leave Space for God

    While at seminary, a friend introduced me to the Hoberman Sphere. This “toy” helped me visualize the sections between joints as pieces in a vast theological puzzle. Theology is how people think and talk about God. Pieces of theology come together bit-by-bit in the course of our lives, not in a linear way, more like a sculpture, placed here and there as you and I go about constructing for ourselves a view of how the world works.  According to its inventor, “The Hoberman sphere expands and contracts with its hubs moving in straight lines radiating from the center. Each point of intersection reinforces the structure. If you fully expand the…

  • Books,  Reading

    Do You Know What You’re Doing When You Read?

    “You need to know what you’re doing if you’re doing it.” This wisdom came from the mouth of a babe, my then 6-year old grandson. I wish you could hear the way he said it. Like so much of the fast-paced life today, people try to squeeze in (or squeeze out) as much as possible in a 24-hour day, and half the time, do we even know what we’re doing while doing it? Ironically, switching tasks costs time rather than saves it. Like checking email while talking on the phone, one or the other will claim our focus, and when the other intrudes, the brain switches tracks. Imagine a drone-view…

  • Faith,  The Bible,  Writing

    Thinking about Lent

    If you come from a religious tradition that teaches about Lent and how to practice Lent, then you already know more than I do. Last week, I asked a friend who attends a Methodist church if she observes Lent. She said Yes, she observes Lent, and Yes, she will get ashes on her forehead tomorrow. Lent falls on Valentines’s Day this year. I look forward to Valentine’s Day because for me it signifies winter is half over. I shouldn’t hurry through any season of life, but winter drags me down. The darkness––shorter days and longer nights––an illness that usually sends me to bed at least once every winter, temperatures that…

  • Good stories,  The Bible

    Timing Is God’s Signature

    The idea came to me years ago while walking the neighborhood, a time when several people had urged me to write a Bible Study. I would call it “The Divine Signature.” I visualized life like a blank page as a way to say “Yes, LORD” to whatever God brought into my life. Prof Hendricks told his Bible Study Methods students at Dallas Seminary that only 6% of ideas were any good. Waiting for that thought to register, he then offered the solution. “Come up with lots of ideas.” I have lots of ideas. Since that time, I have had countless ideas, acted on some of them, and most were not…

  • Good stories,  O, Humanity!,  Reading

    Choose Your Hero: A Good Man is Hard to Find

    Nearly every movie, book, or TV show has shifted from good vs. evil to bad vs. worse. The heroes from the past no longer exist. Heroes in the past used to represent admirable role models. But as Flannery O’Connor wrote, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Stories used to portray discernible character differences tied to moral absolutes. White hats vs. black hats has morphed into 50 shades of gray, and black holes in space where character distinction no longer matters. The outlines have blurred. Dark hearts conceal themselves under public image management. Every character does as he sees fit. Numerous factors and myriad inputs affect the moral compass each…