CategoriesSpiritual Conversation by

Death and Dying

Learning the truth of the life we are living and the death that will come to us all.

It seems our family has been surrounded by death in this past couple of years. First, a niece in her 30s, then Wendy’s sister in her 70s, and my brother in his 80s. We have just now gone through 80-plus years of pictures, watches, hats, and stories about my brother most recently. He died on July 7th. It takes me back to the death of our parents, aunts, uncles, and many family members, especially the “older generation.”

In the normal scheme of things, now it is “our” turn to be the older generation. 77 is a great golf score, but it is also a date in time: On June 26th, 1949, at the Little Company of Mary Hospital, a baby boy joined the large extended family of Andersons’, Liljedahls’, and Nelsons’.

 Seventy-seven years later, I am writing this blog to you. Most of those family members have died.

There is a particular kind of quiet that comes when the people who knew your beginning are no longer in the room. Their photographs remain. Their stories surface at the kitchen table. A hat, a watch, a familiar saying can carry more weight than it did before. Their lives have become part of the story by which we know ourselves. And now, without warning, we find that we are no longer merely the ones remembering the older generation; we have become it.  Read More

CategoriesCompanioning Others, The Art of Dialogue, VP3 happenings by

Better Together

Flying into the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia is special. Dropping down from 30,000 feet over the mountains, the landscape opening up below is a surprise the first time. There are limited options for an approach. I’ve always landed from the north. It’s a bit like threading a geographical needle between small mountains; Okanagan Lake off to the right. So much beauty. And possibility. And lots of VP3 friends.

 

My first VantagePoint3 work assignment on the road was to Kelowna in February 2013. Randy Reese wanted me to meet friends of our ministry. My task was also to celebrate and honor The Journey process alumni in the area. 

 

The VP3 2026 Gathering at Green Bay Camp, October 5-7 on Okanagan Lake, is an opportunity to again convene our many friends in the area and to express VP3’s deep desire to both learn and encourage a more relational way of life and ministry with God and others. 

 

“It is in close relationships with others where we begin to see how Christ is actually, specifically, beautifully active in the fabric of our everyday lives.”

A Mentoring Guide: Christ. Conversation. Companionship. 

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CategoriesSpiritual Conversation by

Say Yes: When Life Feels Out of Control

I would like you to join me in a conversation with a skeptic. Perhaps The Skeptic’s questions are yours too. If so, I have a proposal for both of you—and for myself.

One word describes how life comes at me some days. It feels relentless.

The phone rings, bringing another crisis. The news pulses with uncertainty: war, the cost of living, political vitriol, and one more reason to be afraid. Life can feel like the title of a U2 song: we are “stuck in a moment we can’t get out of’—or perhaps simply ‘Numb.’” It may not be that life is wildly out of control, frantic, or unstable. It may just be a day, a week, or a season when life feels like too much.

This morning I talked with a mother of five at her workplace. She had opened the store at 5:00 a.m. I asked whether she had to move stealthily through the house to get out the door without waking everyone. She smiled without words, offering only a nod that said, “You understand.” I grew up in a household of five children too, so I understood something of that early-morning routine. She knows what it is to have life begin making demands before dawn.

Now you will see why my proposal may sound counterintuitive. In such times, I say with Psalm 33, “Sing joyfully to the Lord.”1

The Skeptic: Did I read that correctly? Read More

CategoriesEncouraging, individuals by

In Memoriam: Wendell Berry

In Memoriam: Wendell Berry
1934–2026

It was late fall or early winter of 2000, as I recall. Wendy and I, along with a few friends, made our way to a bookstore in downtown St. Paul to hear a man read from his newest book. It was not the first time I had heard of this man, Wendell Berry of Kentucky. But that evening made me a student of this Kentucky farmer, novelist, poet, conservationist, and profoundly deep and witty writer.

The book from which he read that night was Jayber Crow: A Novel: The Life Story of Jayber Crow, Barber, of the Port William Membership, as Written by Himself. I left that bookstore with a copy that is now worn, battered, and deeply loved. I now have thirty-five of his books in a place of prominence on my bookshelf. I have read them all, many of them more than once. I am pretty sure a friend or two has others that once sat on my shelf but never found their way home. On a wall in our house, I have a letter from him, written in Advent 2017, and nearby, a picture of him sitting at his writing desk—just a few feet from my own.

Wendell died on August 31, 2026, at his home in Port Royal, Kentucky. He was ninety-two. I grieve his death. I feel it as a personal loss. My tears fell, and my voice choked when I heard the news because, for more than twenty-six years, he had become an honored teacher, a spiritual influence, and a wise voice in my life. I want to tell you why. Read More

CategoriesCompanioning Others, Encouraging, Spiritual Conversation by

Church for the City

We recently celebrated an event on Whidbey Island called Church for the City.   Perhaps as many as 16 churches gathered on the Oak Harbor waterfront at Windjammer Park. It had something of the feel of an Old Testament sacred assembly: elders and neighbors gathering the people to worship, sing, serve, and remember God’s movement in the life of their community. More than a thousand of us came for worship,  a day of service to our city, and a shared communion service. And, by the way, I got a T-shirt.

Our day called to mind Jeremiah’s letter to the exiles in Babylon:

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7).

The word translated welfare is the Hebrew word shalom – peace, wholeness, well-being, thriving, and resilience. The repetition matters: seek the city’s shalom, because in its shalom you will find your shalom. This was not a letter to people who had freely relocated after looking up housing options on Redfin. They had been carried into exile after defeat by a mighty military empire. Jeremiah’s instructions were not merely surprising; they must have been terribly upsetting. Read More