The other day my mentor's father died of a sudden heart attack. It wasn't very unexpected, the idea of his passing, due to his age and a battle with prostate cancer that he'd been waging. Either way though, the death hit home. Prior to that, we've gone to two other funerals recently. The first was for a one of my wife's very good friend's mom. It ( Read more... )

I finally finished reading Thomas Merton's book, The Sign of Jonas, the other day. One of the most insightful things Merton shares toward the end of the work is a sense of thanksgiving for the death of who he was. He shares that he has died from the person who wrote one of his earlier books, to the person who initially entered into the monastic ( Read more... )

I'm really tired this week. Yesterday, I just let some things build up that really put me in a foul frame of mind. It's not that I didn't see some of it coming. Some of it I didn't. Some of it I realistically had no control over. The problem is that I have full control over how I react to the situation. It's not as though someone walked through my ( Read more... )

I'm not a big New Year's person. I've never really made a traditional New Year's resolution or anything like that. But, this year seems as though it may be a pivotal one so, well, I guess I'll throw something out there. Not a list of resolutions, mind you, but, let's call them committments. Or perhaps even better, goals ( Read more... )

Today, I was struck by a photograph and article in our local paper, The Bradenton Herald, that just really moved, saddened, and confused me. I'd post the article and/or the pic here but they charge for that sort of thing plus, well, I just couldn't find it on their website. Let me begin by describing this haunting picture though. The photo involved ( Read more... )

I've been reading this book by Thomas a Kempis, The Inner Life, recently and cannot get this simple line I read the other day out of my head.

He writes: "Would to God that we might spend a single day really well."

Wow. May it be so in my life today.

Last night, in my "leadership" class at school, I had made some comments regarding the Americanization of Christianity and my frustrations with it. To my surprise, my professor agreed and made the oh-so-true statement that America is not, was not, and never will be a "Christian" nation. While it has a heritage of people within who have been ( Read more... )

The other day, I posted a rather long litany of questions, which could have gone far much longer, whose answers I find myself pondering as we enter into this new year. There are the basic concerns of career and family, friends and foes. There are also the questions that continue to haunt and cajole me of rethinking my theologies and of constantly ( Read more... )

I'm not traditionally a New Years kind of person. I don't really care if they're dropping a ball in Times Square or even really care to see midnight roll around. There was a time in my life when that was sort of cool, to stay up late, to hang out with a bunch of people, to cheer and kiss when the clock rang twelve, but these days, it's just not ( Read more... )

I awoke on New Year's Day to a morning filled with dense fog. As I wandered out to work, driving through the thick pea-soup of murkiness, I found myself thinking about how appropriate this uncertain weather truly was, metaphorically speaking. This year holds nothing certain for us. There are plenty of variables at work and many questions that may ( Read more... )