I had been serving Banks 15 years. “Don’t call unless the appointment makes your heart sing,” I had told my District Superintendent (DS), Kate. In my denomination’s vernacular an “appointment” was a church to serve as pastor. In addition, I had told my leadership team what I had heard from my DS, “There were no…
Category: Friendship
London at 19
London as a 19-year-old—friends and I hitched rides, visited Brighton, Bath, Salisbury, and Stonehenge. We met in pubs, drank lager, laughed, told stories, and philosophized about life. One friend, Cammy from my university, and I especially took many walks and short trips together. We had plenty of work on our classes, visited art museums, studied…
Move Forward in Small Steps
We had two of our fuchsia winter over in their hanging pots just sitting on the ground along the back fence. Then this spring new shoots appeared so I hung them in the usual spots and began watering them. They didn’t look as bushy nor as beautiful at first as the ones brought home from…
No Clouds Here.
San Jacinto UMC July 1, 1988 – June 30, 1994 Karen and I, with Anna (3) and Grace (1) in their car seats, drove for four days, in blistering heat, from Kentucky across the country to Southern California. We put a bucket of ice on the floor under Karen’s feet, opened all four windows and…
Look for God
While living on earth Jesus performed many, many miracles. This has long been the focus of controversy by people wanting to see each reproduced today — and they all have been. But still, people doubt. Then Jesus topped all of them in this triumphant defeat over death! Talk about the miracle to top all others! …
The Stalker
March 24th, 2 years ago, I drove Gabrielle, then 26, to the airport. She then was a flight attendant. Enroute I brought up a conversation that we had partially had another day. During that previous conversation, I had asked if she had had any problems with stalkers. The reason I asked was because during training…
Unity
This week I finished reading the book entitled Hamilton: The Revolution which describes what went into the creation of the famous play that has become an international sensation. The book describes the history of the play, the many people that went into making it a reality, the achievement of it, and the power of the…
Relationships Bring Hope
The team of 11 missionaries — all from Westside Journey UMC — returned from the Dominican Republic July 29th, 2019. We experienced great cross-cultural training and a great week of missions work and life impact. The best moment for me in cross-cultural training was when our group was divided into four different “cultures” for which…
Stop the Madness
Those weeks — there are too many things to do, too many directions to go, emails flow in, text messages arrive, phone calls pull at us, needs hit like Dorian hit the East Coast — you know those weeks and those days. So do I. Distraction in those times is like a masked intruder…
The Next Step
Many of you know, I took a sabbatical in 2016. It was time for me to slow down, to walk more than 1,000,000 steps on the Camino de Santiago, and get in touch with my own heart. What happened was I discovered emotions I had not felt, and learned how much I valued silence, and…
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