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Looking Up: What Do You See?
Total solar eclipse this week swept across parts of Mexico, America, and Canada, and people from everywhere went to wherever for the chance to see the moon eclipse the sun. The moon is 400 times smaller than the sun and was 400 times farther away from the sun when this event occurred. Scientists do the math. Journalists report this as a cosmic coincidence when the moon blacks out the earth. People interpret this event through the lenses of telescopes, myths, superstitions, horoscopes, and religion. Whether people watched televised coverage, looked through special glasses, or experienced the total darkness of a blackout solar eclipse, “The heavens declare the glory of God,…
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After Lent, Easter Son-Rise, and Changed Lives
“The bright Morning Star” came to mind, compressing the Bible’s entire message into one word: Jesus. “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” Rev. 22:16 I awoke thinking about Resurrection Sunday: church, family at lunch, Easter eggs, and the flowers of Spring. Early, when it was yet dark … Something else came to mind. A movie I wanted to watch. The evening of Easter Sunday, I watched the movie Ben Hur. I’ve seen this movie many times, but I first saw this film as a young girl at the…
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Every Human Being Bleeds Red
The Covenant of Water, this may be the most majestical book I have ever read. Stop. Best book I have ever listened to, all 31 hours and 16 minutes. Read by the author, hearing him tell this story prepared me to read the book, which I plan to read word by word this summer, all 715 pages. The Covenant of Water is a novel written by Abraham Verghese, currently a professor and Vice chair of the Department of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. This leaves out a string of other recognitions and achievements, credentials that hint at his background, that contribute to the authority he demonstrates throughout…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…