I start most days sitting in silence. Often, because of the drive-drive-drive culture we live in, this feels like wasted time. Sometimes it is, mostly because I fail to put my phone down and I end up frittering the time away. Distracted, never settled, jumping at every noise my phone makes. Those times make my […]

In order to challenge our assumptions about other human beings, especially those different from us, we have to get outside our circle. We have to decide - and it will take a decision - to place ourselves, humbly and gently, in circles of people who are different from us. And when we do ... let's […]

"Best of any song is bird song in the quiet, but first you must have the quiet." (Wendell Berry)

Sacred space is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. […]

One of the main reasons that many of us refuse to get involved with hurting people is that we believe we need to fix them. And we know we can’t. A friend whose child has cancer… A friend whose spouse walks out… A stranger in need… We know we do not have an easy answer […]

Mark Buchanan is one of my favorite writers and thinkers. He is a pastor from Canada and often writes brilliant one-liners that say more than an entire paragraph! Here is one I've been pondering this entire summer: "Endless busyness is earwax against God's voice and a blindfold to God's presence." So many of us wonder […]