A word about,… The Climb. Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Matt. 5 and what we call The Sermon on the Mount begins this way: “When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and…
A Word About, …Overwhelmed I was feeling overwhelmed the other day with so many tasks and demands, and things in my life. As I sat in my pity party, thinking about that ‘feeling’ of being overwhelmed, I decided to check out the meaning of that word. Was I feeling ‘overwhelmed?’ or was it something…
A Word About Firsts,… Life in all its complexities and nuances is crowded with occasions we call ‘first times.’ My life began, almost certainly, with a crying episode. (Although I don’t recall it, I must have been absolutely squalling,) The first time I ever took a breath. The first time I ever got smacked…
A Word About Songs … I’ve mentioned before, here on Classic State of Mind, that music has been an integral part of my journey for my entire life. My parents loved to sing gospel music when I was growing up, and when we took family trips in the car, singing church songs helped make…
A Word About… Handwriting Lately, I’ve been thinking a bit about handwriting. There’s something deeply personal about it, I think. A signature on a document. A note scrawled in the margin of a well-worn Bible. A letter, faded with time, written by a hand that is now long gone from this world. It may…
A Word About Voting, … Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation of Lk. 17 caught my attention the other day. He translated v. 33 of Luke 17: ‘If you grasp and cling to life on your terms, you’ll lose it, but if you let that life go, you’ll get life on God’s terms.’ Lk. 17:33 An interesting…
A Word About Testimonies … When I was a little boy growing up in Granite City, Illinois, on hot summer Wednesday nights in our neighborhood, I often found it my lot to go to Wednesday Night prayer meeting with my little granny. She wasn’t five feet tall in the flesh, but she was…
A Word about Perception I read an article recently that said that if we paid attention to the number of advertisements we’re exposed to on any given day, the total would be anywhere from 4,000 to 10,000 appeals … EVERY DAY. Wow! I know they’re everywhere I look; appeals, ads, commercials. But I had…
A word about, … Almost All of us can reflect back on our lives and recall occasions, events, moments when things didn’t quite materialize or measure up to or pan out the way we thought they would. Maybe they came close. Almost, though. The dictionary says “Almost” is very nearly … but not…
A word about … pieces Not often —but sometimes — we put a jigsaw puzzle together at my house. We usually choose the puzzle based on the picture on the box. Maybe it’s a puzzle of a flower garden, or a mountain scene. Once, we had a puzzle of a bunch of jelly…