A Word About Niggling My wife loves to decorate our home with clocks and watches of all sorts and descriptions. In fact, one entire wall of our home is nearly covered with clocks of various sizes and shapes. We have one mantle clock that doesn’t seem to know what time it is when…
A Word About Noticing A few years ago, Michael Ashcraft wrote a very engaging book, titled “My One Word.” In that book, Ashcraft challenged readers to choose one word that represented what they might most hope God would change in them — and focus on it for an entire year. After that book came…
A Word About …Intersections Several years ago, my wife and I were privileged to enjoy a sabbatical together. The congregation we served gave us two months away from our normal responsibilities. After much deliberation and planning, we spent the first three weeks of our sabbatical in the Canadian Rockies. Just the two of us….
A Word About Amazed I often wonder what it must have been like for those early followers of Jesus to sit and listen to him teach. What did his voice sound like? I can’t imagine Jesus sounding like a taxi driver from New York City, or a cowboy from the Texas plains. We don’t…
A Word About Casting An old fishing reel sits on top of one of the shelves in my office. My dad gave it to me when I was only ten years old. I don’t suppose he could have given me anything I would be more thrilled with than that reel, because it went…
A Word About Strife If Classic State of Mind is about anything at all, it’s about what’s ruminating around in my head at any particular moment in time. My hope is that the thoughts rattling around in my head will also resonate with those who are listening. Often, whatever I’m thinking about or…
A Word About Fulcrums I recently watched two children as they played on a teeter totter one leisurely afternoon. Up and down, up and down, each of them sitting on their end of that board. I suspected they might be twins; they looked identical, and they were the same size as they bounced back…
A Word About Simple I get up early most mornings. And many of those mornings, I’m up early because I’m writing. As I sit at my computer, I have a fantastic opportunity every day, looking at that blank screen, that cursor benignly blinking at me, awaiting my keystrokes. I can write whatever I…
A Word About Homesick I saw a post on social media the other day from one of my friends when I was in high school. I guess they’ve been planning it for a while now, but they finally took the plunge. They’re moving back to our hometown. She and her husband have been living in…
A Word About Time Where in the world does the time go, I wonder, when time goes by? And how many times have I used that phrase? As time’s clock ticks the moments of my life away, After a second has passed … Does it go somewhere? Is there some great vault of moments, Where the God…