Uncategorized

Forgiveness, silence, and getting out of prison…

2014-08-29T13:36:41+00:00By Joel|Music, Uncategorized|

What if people didn't have to believe/think like us? (religion, politics, T.V. show preference, and other things) What if we didn't act as if it were our job to convert people to our way(s) of thinking? What if, instead, we focused more on trying to actively show the love and kindness of Christ to people who don't agree with us? Just thinking out loud here. Or quietly, while typing on my keyboard. Ok, so it's obvious that I'm getting to something, but am purposefully being all whimsically rhetorical about it. It just kind of seems that since Jesus taught us to pray, "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:12) it could be [...]

Being Human, Doing Hard Things, and an Extravagant Call

2014-08-29T14:02:38+00:00By Joel|Uncategorized|

Frodo: "I can't do this, Sam." Sam: "I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, [...]

Reboot.

2014-08-29T14:03:19+00:00By Joel|Featured, Uncategorized|

Time for a reboot. I've been using that term a lot lately for different things. It seems to just be synonymous with pruning and cutting things out of life. Taking things to their simplest state again. Because of that, I've sort of been pondering something that I affectionately call "Wendell Berry-ing it." Wendell Berry is someone that I'm challenged and inspired by. Berry is a prophetic-type guy: a farmer, an advocate for peace, activist with much to say about war, the environment, the economy and society in general, he's a novellist and poet, and he doesn't own a computer and lives an Agrarian lifestyle. This outspoken voice resonates in my imagination. But to be honest, I'm [...]

Seek, Find, and Wonder

2014-08-29T14:03:56+00:00By Joel|Featured, Uncategorized|

My daughter's birthday was last week. So was my anniversary. My two girls and me. It has made me think of life, as I always do. Not just what has happened, and not what will happen, but what is happening. Because today is connected. Yesterday is a vapor and tomorrow is a shadow that the sun (right now) casts on the sidewalk in front of us. Learning from the past, planning for the future, and living in the moment should make us hold loosely our life as it swirls like water with the oil of wonder. One day it will all be caught up together. No separation. One day. The wonder being the hope of Christ, [...]