Just read this poem on a Parker Palmer blog ... He writes about how much his work matters; how hard he is still working. But how much it matters, too, that we understand we are not only our work. We are something deeper, something richer, and more lasting than just what we produce. "Even in […]

Our lives as we live them seem like lives that anticipate questions that never will be asked. It seems as if we are getting ourselves ready for the question “How much did you earn during your lifetime?” or “How many friends did you make?” or “How much progress did you make in your career?” or “How […]

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm then, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1) and ... "If your version of Christianity doesn't make you feel free, you are doing it wrong." (Andy Stanley)  

From all that I said about our worried, over-filled lives, it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to […]

So the other night some of us in the Shirey family were talking about the various imperfections of our bodies. It was a fun/funny conversation. In the midst of it, we talked a bit about trees, and how imperfect almost every tree is, and yet how we pay such little attention to their imperfections; we […]

This is the true joy of life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.             […]