March Madness basketball is cancelled, but it is playing out all around us. Store shelves are empty of hand sanitizer and toilet paper. The President just declared a national emergency. It really is a difficult and scary time. And it is all changing so quickly. As your pastor, I am stumbling through these days. Just […]

Read more "Scattering Life"

I misplaced my wedding ring on Tuesday. This is fairly common routine. I bought Tiles for my keys and wallet… alas, they don’t make a wedding ring Tile! I looked everywhere I could imagine — combing the carpet, un-piling laundry — but eventually gave up and left for the office. Later Meg shot me this […]

Read more "Finding Peace"

In two weeks we leave for Haiti. Into the mountains to build a medical clinic. Away from our normal base camp — Jenny’s Villa is on the beach near the ocean with palm trees — we are taking tents. True camping. I should probably pack marshmallows… and tarantula repellent! For some this would be a […]

Read more "Tents"

With a group of deacons, I am reading Phileena Heuertz’s book Mindful Silence. At the end of each chapter she outlines a specific prayer. The second chapter asks us to spend time in silence picturing the scene of Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52). Bartimaeus cries out, but the crowd silences him, pushes him back. Yet Jesus […]

Read more "What do you want?"

Friends, the Chiefs are in the Super Bowl. Wear your RED on Sunday! But that is not the only event happening in my life. I am about to hit a milestone and become a stone tumbling down the hill. On Monday I am Forty. And a new decade makes me pause… what hill has my […]

Read more "Hills, Billboards, and Living"

“I like Texas, but I don’t have to like Texas – you like yourselves enough.” — Comedian Dustin Nickerson  Much like the people of Texas, it was easy for the Jews to imagine the Messiah coming for them. Read Jeremiah 29:10-14 – a passage we know so well – and realize it was written for […]

Read more "Loved Enough"

A few months ago it was easy to be jealous of the Astros — especially with the Royals stumbling into regular losing. Houston made the playoffs 4 of the last 5 seasons, won it all in 2017, this year the AL Pennant, and seem primed to keep winning. But now the team is mired in […]

Read more "Paging Tomorrow"