Nomad Chronicles

Don’t Let Me Forget: The song on the radio in a room called “Remember”

2022-06-03T18:04:48+00:00By Joel|Audio, Memoirs, memories, Nomad Chronicles|

This week I've been pondering, as many have, the end of this year. The spiritual practice of "Remembering" has become a helpful and comfortable place for me over the years. Like broken in jeans, or shoes, or that piece of furniture that has become contoured to your shape over time. I've recently been thinking of a Frederick Buechner book entitled, "A Room Called Remember." The book is introduced and themed around a dream that Buechner had. He had a dream where he was staying in an incredibly euphoric hotel room but when he left it he found that he couldn’t find it again. He went to a front desk to explain his predicament, and the room, [...]

The renewal of listening

2020-04-20T00:51:39+00:00By Joel|Create, Morning and Night, Music, Nomad Chronicles, prayer|

There are moments where everything changes, because you can hear so clearly. I remember in my exuberant teen piety, I would pray time and time again, "Lord, I give you everything I am. I am fully Yours." I would burn my 'secular' music in bonfires, and anything else that I felt separated me from God. I went on a mission trip to South America where I came face to face with real poverty, and it turned my world upside-down. I returned to the states with a flipped worldview: I couldn't go back to the way things were. A couple of months later I was helping to lead a youth lock-in at my church, and with little [...]

Home

2018-01-17T23:48:11+00:00By Joel|Music, nature, Nomad Chronicles, prayer, trust|

"The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it." - Frederick Buechner This morning I'm sitting on the porch, with coffee, and thinking about home. Which is a little ironic since I'm in my house. But house doesn't equal home. And the worlds that we carry around with us are so much more than the green and blue rock we live on. Frederick Buechner said it this way, “You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, [...]