In a 1942 letter to his former student Mary Neylen, writer and professor C. S. Lewis acknowledges that we are too often caught up in life's whirlwinds, forgetting to set aside our assumptions and watch for God in the ordinary.
Read MoreThe conference notifications keep arriving in my inbox: "What Does It Take to be Happy?" "What is Happiness to YOU?" "In Pursuit of Happiness." We spoke this past Sunday about the ways God has used plagues in Exodus and again in Revelation to get our attention, pointing to the inadequacies of the idols we hold dear and ultimately drawing us closer to Him. So how has a longing for happiness emerged from our current pandemic?
Read MoreImagine a 700-acre farm rolled up and squeezed into a 95,000-square-foot warehouse in southern Los Angeles County. Better yet, imagine a farm twice that size here in Oregon, condensed and stacked into our local Safeway grocery store. Sound unlikely? Meet Plenty, an indoor vertical farming company founded in 2013.
Read MoreWhen is the last time you wondered at the intricacy of a spiderweb? Have you ever pondered how the spider knows which way to leap, masterfully weaving together strands of silk that are five times stronger than steel? What if you could hear a soundtrack that accompanies the spider as it pulls and spins, leaps and connects?
Read MoreSometimes it's hard to get past the assumption that bigger is better: a larger size + more money + broader experience + greater time invested = better results, right? In our 21st-century western American biggie-size culture, the answer invariably is an all-caps "YES!" And in our faith, more of Jesus is a daily desire, of course, but a bigger Jesus? Must we?
Read MoreIn his magical 1922 poem "The Waste Land," T. S. Eliot opens with a glimpse of the spring struggle inherent in the month of April:
Read MoreIn the warm climate of Palestine, the leaves of the fig trees begin to bud and unfurl in late March. Alongside the spring leaves, a crop of small edible knobs called taksh emerge --tiny early buds that drop to the ground before the true figs form later in summer. A tree that sprouts leaves but no taksh in the spring will not produce figs for the summer harvest.
Read MoreAs we anticipate Palm Sunday this Sunday and Easter Sunday the following week, I hope you will carve space to remember the enormous cost and impact of this critical week. While time may blur into the tenuousness of pandemic restrictions, God is not waiting. He is in all and over all, and if there is anything we can learn from the trajectory of history, it is that any time the world experiences great upheaval, we can anticipate God to bring forward change in new and unexpected ways.
Read MoreIn our 21st-century busy-ness, we often talk about the importance of saying "no" -- of grounding ourselves in what is worthy rather than allowing our days to drift past without a keen sense of awareness. And while our ability to set appropriate boundaries is important, our willingness to say "yes" can be even more critical.
Read MoreI spent much of my childhood skeptical about Easter. I of course enjoyed the fanfare of egg hunts, chocolate bunnies, fancy clothes, and a church service crowded with Easter lilies, but I struggled with some of the elements that other kids seemed to so comfortably accept: adults dressed in oversized rabbit costumes, baby chicks and bunnies emerging from eggs, an Easter bunny tale that seemed to mimic Santa Claus.
Read MoreIn a warehouse in Valencia, California, long rolls of nondescript canvas are tied with string and piled on top of one another, some with numbered tags and many without. The dusty canvas rolls are 10, 20, and 30 feet long, taking up precious space in an expensive Santa Clarita neighborhood. But if you untie the string, a magical world emerges: a snowy suburban home from National Velvet, a sunlit glass gazebo from The Sound of Music, a craggy Mount Rushmore scene from North by Northwest.
Read MoreAs we study together the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, how readily are you able to imagine yourself cheering in the massive stadium in Smyrna or wandering through the majestic library in Pergamum? What if you could hold in your palm the coins they traded in the marketplaces some 2,000 years ago?
Read MoreIn Eugene Peterson's book Reversed Thunder, he bemoans the careful language we sometimes use when we talk about God. We are wary of saying more than logic can verify, or misspeaking and exposing ourselves as nonsensical. The pressure is real when we believe that every word we choose will somewhere reveal a hidden truth about our salvation, and we take great care to avoid the mistakes we ourselves have critiqued and even poked fun at.
Read MoreThe third-century Roman Emperor Claudius II was an aggressive military leader who stepped into his role at a time when the Roman Empire was under attack both within and outside its borders. Claudius believed that single men made the best soldiers, undistracted by emotional attachments to wives or children, and he also found the Christian concept of marriage distasteful and unnecessary. So he outlawed marriage in the Roman Empire.
Read MoreOnly one woman sat on the speakers' platform when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963. Dorothy Height had helped to organize the rally in Washington DC's National Mall and had already made a name for herself as president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and a forerunner of the civil rights movement.
Read MoreHong Kong resident Lai Chi-wai is a four-time winner of the Asian Rock Climbing Championships and once was ranked eighth in the world for his rock-climbing prowess. In 2011, Lai was in a major car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down, but the 37-year-old has not let paraplegia diminish his dreams.
Read MoreFeeling frustrated? Overwhelmed? Exhausted? Here's one way to get those 2020/2021 emotions out: Call 1-561-567-8431, scream for as loud and long as you like, and then hang up. As the website boasts, don't worry. No one is actually listening when you call, although your voice will be recorded and added to what has become an international montage of collective frustration. To listen to screams from around the world, including your own, go to the website justscream.baby.
Read More"My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian," begins Mark Twain's 1903 short story "A Dog's Tale." The story is a heart-wrenching commentary on the ills of short-sighted people who mistreat others, told through the voice of a sweet, trusting dog who has an affinity for the word "Presbyterian": "This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got so much education."
Read MoreKelly was an American Quaker professor who dedicated his life to listening for God's call through the angst and anxiety of two world wars. When World War I broke out, Kelly traveled to England with the YMCA to work with German prisoners of war. He was eventually fired from that position when his ardent pacifism angered military officials, and he returned to the United States to complete his PhD.
Read Morejoin me in pondering again the irony of the words I shared this past Sunday from Dr. Robert P. Kerr in The People's History of Presbyterianism:
Books are to be read, not to lie on dusty shelves. But this is a busy age, and most persons will not take time to read extensive treatises. The people call for short sermons, short prayers, and short books. Nor is this demand without reason; for life itself is short, and there is much to do.
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