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
It was thirty-two years ago, and the memory is still strong. I was in my second year as campus pastor at my alma mater in St. Paul. A beloved faculty member was fired just days before the start of the school year. We became a community in pain, crisis, and conflict. Emotions were running high, and feelings were deep, and we needed to be ready for the students to watch us as we taught by our actions, words, and reactions. I wrote a pastoral letter to the community asking for calm and redemptive love as we muddled our way forward. The stakes are even higher for us in our divisions across our nation. I’ll share some of what I wrote then, never thinking it might apply so intensely today. Read More
It’s the Holy Week of Lent. It is Maundy Thursday. The “big” days in many minds are tomorrow, Good Friday, and, of course, Easter: Resurrection Sunday.
However, this Thursday is powerfully important for Christians, even for those who don’t remember the meaning of the word. “Maundy” comes from Latin, mandatum¸which simply means command.
Jesus knows his physical death is near. What would you do? Jesus made supper. Read More
Kathleen Norris frames Lent as a time of remembering or returning and embracing the rhythms of monastic practice. It is a time, she would say, for contemplation and spiritual discipline. As a poet and Benedictine, she sees Lent as a time to return to silence, simplicity, and a deep awareness of God’s presence. She even speaks of the Lenten experience as something like the desert experience, recognizing that both dryness and struggle are part of the spiritual journey. One of her primary practices is lectio divina, which is the slow, meditative reading of scripture.
Following today’s blog, you will find an outline for the practice of lectio divina by which we allow the words of scripture to shape the heart and imagination, something essential in this age of distraction. Like Peterson, she would say that fasting is a practice of detachment, not merely from food, but anything that keeps one from being fully present to God, including our busyness, perfectionism, self-doubt, and abstracted faith.
Walter Brueggemann looks to the prophetic traditions of the Hebrew Bible and sees Lent as a season where believers are called to resist the dominant narrative, as he would call them, of empire: materialism, individualism, and injustice. Therefore, he would say we fast not just from food but from the illusions of security, control, and excess that define our modern culture.
One of his essential Lenten practices is simply truth-telling. Lent invites believers to examine the lies that they have accepted about themselves, society, or about God. This requires engaging deeply with the Bible, particularly the prophetic voices that call for justice, mercy, faithfulness, and care for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger in the land. Read More
Growing up, I didn’t know about Lent from my own experience; I only knew about it from my Catholic friend, Phil. For a while, we were inseparable, sharing employment with the Chicago Tribune by delivering newspapers in the early morning hours. We went to school together from Ben Franklin Elementary School, Glen Ellyn Junior High, to Glenbard West High School. Lent for Phil, as I recall, was about giving up something like Snicker bars, or Wrigley chewing gum. In time, I learned a deeper meaning.
Lent is the season of 40 days leading to our celebration of Easter, the resurrection of Jesus. The word simply means ”springtime,” but in liturgical circles, it is understood as a time of preparation—almost a desert experience like Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness after his baptism.
“First popularized in the fourth century, Lent is traditionally associated with penitence, fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. It is a time for ‘giving things up’ balanced by ‘giving to those in need.’”[1] Some consider it a time of dread and darkness, but it is better understood as a time of prayerful self-reflection. It is “…a time to stop hanging on to whatever shreds of goodness we perceive in ourselves; a time to ask God to show us what we really look like.”[2] Read More
We are a culture that values the immediate, the fast, and the rapid. I want my coffee within a minute, my burger in two, and my customer service call to be answered stat. A friend of mine, Ben, used a phrase as he told me the story of his spiritual journey. The earliest stage he called “trust and obey,” which mostly meant trying to stay out of trouble and do as he was told (by his parents, the church, and the pastor). A second stage had to do with “knowing more,” which, for him, meant more informational knowledge—cognitive knowing where “being right” was more important than being righteous. But he used a phrase that captivated my imagination: “faithful repetition,” which, in his experience, meant mostly rote memorization or surface-level intellectual learning. I’d like to reclaim that phrase in a more positive view. Read More
The silver-gray VW SUV stopped at the light on Highway 20 just in front of me. On the back of the car was a sticker with the words “Little explorer on board ” in cursive letters. As the father-in-law and grandfather of two firefighters, I know the sticker intends to alert first responders that a child is more than likely in the vehicle.
I mused about that idea for the rest of my drive home. What if we had a sticker like that on our Bibles?
Spiritual mentoring is too often understood as only something between one person and an older, wise mentor—end of sentence.
The driver of this SUV wants others to know they have a little explorer on board. Would they consider that their spiritual maturity, discipline, and growth have similar implications for their children or grandchildren? Read More
I remember when I heard Eugene Peterson tell the story of Reuben Lance, a surprising candidate for mentoring. Eugene decided he was headed to seminary. I think the elders in the small-town Montana church were a bit worried about what might happen to the hometown boy off at Biblical Seminary in NYC. “We better have someone get him ready,” they said. “Who could do it?”
And this is the part of the story I love most. They asked a local handyman, Reuben Lance, to become Eugene’s mentor. The two met every week for the summer in a Sunday School classroom.
They talked about life and God. Eugene said, “We got on very well. Neither of us had a name for what we were doing, but I learned a lot, and Reuben never took over. He was my first and one of the best spiritual directors I’ve ever had.” Read More
Think of this blog as a favorite comfortable chair with a table for coffee, tea, or your favorite beverage. A space that allows you to feel at ease, welcomed, and ready for spiritual exploration. On this table, we will set images, provocative questions, quotes from spiritual writers, poetry, stories, and always a fresh look at scripture, the living voice of the living God for going deep into your own living faith.
At VantagePoint3, we have been cultivating the art of seeing others for 23 years . Close friends know that we call this “particularizing a person.” As our lives and the communities we lead continue to re-calibrate and lean into what matters most in 2024, the importance of relationships is front and center. 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.”
