I was a young pastor in a university town, newly baptized into the fierce faith of campus ministry. Soon after, a group of Christian students—bold, bright-eyed, unashamed—welcomed me into their company. They carried the gospel like wildfire, unafraid to bring the name of Jesus into the thick of frat house bravado.
“Will you join us,” they asked, “as we go into the fraternity houses to speak the name of Jesus?”
I said yes. Braver in word than in spirit, I nodded—though inside, I trembled.
Three old friends. Once college roommates. Now, silver-haired sages with weathered faces and tender hearts. We gathered with spouses on a Zoom call, decades of life behind us, some days heavy with loss. Yet even in the ache of aging and memory, there was a quiet sense that we are still living under the blessing. What do old friends talk about?
We reminisce about life “back in the day” Read More
It was the late ’80s. A guest was coming to Chapel—an international musician, a name known across the Christian world, and more importantly, my daughter Keri’s favorite: Michael W. Smith. She skipped school that day, rode with me to the airport, and sat behind us with quiet anticipation. Only later did I discover she had tucked a tape recorder under the seat, capturing every word, as if to hold onto a memory of a fleeting morning. She knew something special was unfolding. Years later, one of his songs—simple, pulsing like a heartbeat—brought me back. “This is how I fight my battles.” A repeated phrase, a cry, a creed. Not through sword or shield, but through praise. Through presence. Through faith. It summoned in me the vision of Isaiah 61—an epic chapter of beauty and protest, lament and renewal.
Jesus was a carpenter, but as an artisan, not simply a builder. My “office” table was built by the Boos company and was intended to be a cutting board in a kitchen. It sits in the corner of what I sentimentally call my “cabin,” a room with knotty pine walls and ceilings, a space of intimacy, warmth, and windows. Twelve windows in all that let me see the sun coming from the east in the morning and the shadows as they move to the west in the evening. It’s sturdy, as cutting boards should be. It’s the perfect height to give me a view of the horizon—with its sunlight, trees, clouds, and the morning marine layer of fog. After all, I live on an island in the Pacific Northwest.
This table has become, for me, my altar in the world; it is more than just furniture.
Outside Chris’s bakery, Oak Harbor, WA, he carried a box of a dozen of the most colorful doughnuts in the bakery. He was parked next to us. I heard him singing as he prepared to climb into his truck. I said with a smile, “You haven’t had a doughnut yet; how can you be singing?” He smiled back and replied with joy on his face and delight within, “I have Jesus. I can sing anytime.”
Wendy and I both felt his joyful conviction. I started my morning by taking our dog, Mackenzie, out to the backyard. My daily morning prayer is a greeting of adoration, an old Jewish prayer: “Blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe.” And “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Just moments later, we experienced this man’s testimony of praise. Yes, he testified, first in song and then in naming Jesus as the reason for his joy.
Whether you read novels or prefer Netflix movies, the story is the center of both genres. We could call them the curriculum for those writers. As a good novel unfolds with unexpected twists and surprising turns of a plot, so the biography of one’s life unfolds. Where it will lead is not always clear until more of the story develops.
The deepest truth of spirituality is always autobiographical. It is incarnational, lived in the grit of life on Monday and Tuesday, and all the days of the week. “My drifting is consecrated in pilgrimage.”[1] The gentle and probing questions of a mentor draw us to the central action of spirituality: to pay attention for the presence of God in everything.
On the other side of Easter, we find ourselves on the Emmaus Road. We get to walk the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus with two disciples who are anything but joyful. Rather, they are downcast, defeated, discouraged, perhaps even feeling betrayed in the midst of their confusion, sorrow, and grief. Jesus is dead. Jesus was crucified. Jesus will never be present again to speak, teach, console, heal, and love them. Hope was shattered for these two who had pinned their hope on Jesus as the Messiah. The long-awaited one they believed was sent from God to redeem Israel and set the world right once again.
I’ve never walked that dusty road, but I know Emmaus—the experience of disappointment and unanswered questions. Like you, I have lived in the darkness of what feels like the absence of the living God. I have lived focused, not on hope or Jesus’ declaration about the future, but focused instead on my own emotional sense of loss and disappointment. Read More
“I want to hear Jesus’ voice.” Many years ago, Richard Foster, founder of Renovare’ told us three things prevent us from hearing that voice we long for: noise, hurry, and crowds. In Luke 10, we find a case study of both sides of that dilemma. Martha is a busy host who opens her home to Jesus and never sits down because of her compulsion to be busy. She must have felt obligated to provide a high level of care for her Lord. Mary, on the other hand, remains seated as an attentive student, opening her mind and heart to Jesus’ teaching. “Martha, you are distracted by many things…only one thing is needed.” Read More
There are voices that echo beyond time, like the hush of wind through cedar trees, or the hush of spirit in solitude. One of those voices for me has always been Howard Thurman — chaplain, mystic, and a man who walked the worn, sacred path between suffering and hope.
Thurman, the first Black chaplain at Boston University, once wrote:
On a recent podcast, I heard the speaker say, “We have less capacity to listen in our culture today than we did in the past.” I disagree. I say, “No, our capacity is not the issue, our intentionality is.” Jesus said it: “He or she who has ears to hear, listen”
I’ve been musing on this and found myself coming to a new thought: What happens to the mentor when they have ears to hear? Does something change in you as a mentor because you engage in deep listening? I think the answer is yes. Read More
"Practical. Insightful. In my 50 years as a pastor, I’ve read many of these. This is THE best. I ordered 12 to give as gifts.”
