I saw a sign once in a restaurant washroom that made an edilible impression on me. This was a small little diner, with one washroom. Someone had nailed the sign on the inside of the bathroom door, at eye-level, so that when a person entered and turned to shut and lock the door, they…
In Psalm 46, there is a particular and important instruction in verse 10. The Lord says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” I’ve known that verse for a long time. But I’m not very good at the idea of being ‘quiet’ in my life. I love the way Eugene Peterson in The Message…
I’m one of those people who thinks that routines and regimens represent an important part of living life on purpose, and helping me focus on what I’ve determined matters most. When I am careful to take note of the way I do things, the order in which I do them on a regular basis,…
A quick question, please: How are things with your quotidian life? Unless you’re a very vocabulary-minded person, you probably don’t know the meaning of that word, (at least, I didn’t know its meaning until I looked it up in the dictionary.) No, you may not know the definition of the word, but I guarantee you…
I’ve often wondered about the difference between the day before Christmas, and the day before Easter. Have you? I especially wonder about the day before that very first Christmas and the day before that very first Easter. On that first Christmas eve, you remember, the angels sang. Shepherds showed up at the manger. They’d been…
Every year about this time, it happens. One year ends. Another begins. Every New Years Eve, there’s a big hoopla in Time Square, as hundreds of thousands of people gather, standing for hours in the cold — no matter how cold — in order to watch a huge crystal ball drop at the midnight hour,…
This morning, as my feet hit life’s floor, I was reminded again that some of the things in my body that used to work well don’t work like they did when I was younger. My joints seem sore and stiff a lot of the time, these days. I’ve got arthritis in my hands, my…
If you ever get to come to my house to visit, over near the front door, in the living room, there’s a little stub wall that helps enclose our wood stove. And on that little wall, there are some incredibly important lines, carefully drawn over the past few years. The lines aren’t long. Barely…
Communicating through protective masks is something our culture is trying to get used to. I don’t know about you, but I have a terrible time being understood through a face mask. Whether I’m sitting in my car at the local Starbucks drive-through, or trying to exchange greetings with someone in the grocery aisle, somehow, my…
My wife and I just returned from a trip to the Midwest for a Memorial Service for a family member. Every airport along our journey shared one specific and common site: a control tower. Every airport had one of those tall, concrete obelisk-looking towers that rises several stories above runways. Men and women sit in…