I have noticed in my decades as a pastor that more people than not have a troubled relationship with God. Rather than experiencing God as love and loving, we experience God as judgmental and judging. This dramatically impacts how we live, whether we realize it or not. A couple quotes got me thinking about this. […]

Chuck and I drove out to our new treehouse in the woods last night. We deliberately didn't listen to news on the drive. No music, either. Just casual catching up, the easy conversation of almost 40 years of the deepest kind of friendship. It was a beautiful summer evening in Iowa. Not too hot, mostly […]

I have a birthday next week. I like birthdays; they mean I have been given the unearned gift of another year on this beautiful, troubled planet full of beautiful, troubled people, including myself. I am always thoughtful as the day approaches and this year I thought I might write myself a little blessing. You are […]

In my decades as a pastor, the complaint I heard most from all kinds of folks went something like this, "I want to have a stronger spiritual life, but my everyday life gets in the way." Sound familiar? There is an inherent fallacy in this statement that leaves us all with no perceivable solution. There […]

Whenever I feel like my life does not measure up (whatever that means), or that I need to somehow "do more" (whatever that means), I find myself leaning into this little poem, and feeling better: "And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To […]

“The high value put upon every minute of time, the idea of hurry-hurry as the most important objective of living, is unquestionably the most dangerous enemy of joy.” (Herman Hesse, 1877 - 1962) Thus, the joyless country we seem to be living in right now. All of our hurry-hurry has left us bereft of the […]