She sat there, in the chair just across the desk, staring at her feet. Her eyes were moist with tears. Her voice choked as she held back the sobs that made her shoulders shudder. Her words were simple, but desperate. “You don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know what I’ve done.” The third time she said it the words... READ MORE >
I didn’t expect to find parking, so I decided my best opportunity would be Broadway, across from the public lot, in front of the little yellow building that will forever be for me Inga & Lena’s Mexican restaurant where they held a surprise party for my fortieth birthday. I got the spot nearest the driveway into the old visitor center... READ MORE >
When the plane landed in Denver, darkness and rain bathed the airport, the city, and the hotel. The flights from Duluth and Minneapolis had been long but uneventful. I was the last of the six pastors and two seminar leaders to check in. Rather than follow my usual course discovering the layout of my surroundings, I simply followed the clerk’s... READ MORE >
Children, the Bible says, are a gift from God. It seems logical to me, then, if children are a gift to parents from God, then parents are a gift from God to children. It also seems to me desperately sad how few parents and children experience each other as intentional gifts of divine love to the other. This is the... READ MORE >
On March 3, 1991, Rodney Glen King was beaten by LAPD officers after a high-speed chase during his arrest for drunk driving and driving while intoxicated on I-210. The four officers involved in the arrest were charged with use of excessive force and tried. Of these, three were acquitted, and the jury failed to reach a verdict on one charge... READ MORE >
Whatever else you might think about Jesus, it’s difficult to deny that sometimes he said some hard things. Sometimes, training the hearts of those who would follow him, Jesus laid down rules of faith that turn our basic human assumptions upside down. Take, for instance, these instructions from Matthew 5, a passage in the New Testament commonly referred to as... READ MORE >
I don’t know about you, but I’ve about had it with COVID-19. Masks, social distancing, lines, shutdowns, information overload, and who really knows what is true and what is manipulation! I’ve just about reached my limit. Not that I’m ready to chuck reason or throw caution to the wind. I still want to examine carefully personal practices that might affect... READ MORE >
The text below is an excerpt from a new commentary I’ve written on the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes (due out from Covenant Books later this summer). For many readers, the book of Ecclesiastes is the epic failure of the Bible. The book’s primary theme is penned as “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” Ecclesiastes logs the utter futility of... READ MORE >
I am writing this column at 10:51 in the morning on a bright, sunny, beautiful Tuesday morning March 24, 2020. The snow in the parking lot outside my office window has begun to melt revealing tire stripes of dark, smushy, gravelly mud. It is beginning to look and feel like spring. Sort of. I am writing from my office knowing... READ MORE >
Two individuals, deep in personal crisis approached Jesus within minutes of each other. He had returned home to Capernaum from his jaunt to the other side of the lake. The crowds heard he was back and they surrounded him there on the shore. A man pushed his way through the mass of curious people. The gospel of Mark tells us... READ MORE >
