Hello, My Name is Phillip: Chapter Twenty

(This is the serial release of the book Hello, My Name is Phillip. Please share these blog posts to let others know about the book. It is available on Amazon here. This chapter begins on Phillip’s first day of school. Thank you for reading, liking, commenting and sharing.) I am not excited. I am terrified….

Becoming Human

For a book I am writing about my own life, I have been reading my own journals. What a mine of evidence there is in those that I have taken steps forward! That is good news for some days it can feel as if I am traversing the same lessons again and again. Can you…

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…

I Awoke at 3:30 am…

I awoke at 3:30 am and began to pray. I prayed through until 5 am, then I got up. Reverberating through my heart was this one line: “This is wickedness.” Antifa: The name is short for Anti-facist, but they seem to be against all kinds of things and groups and people, indeed, perhaps against anything…

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…

Object Lessons

Object lessons. You know them. The ones where a leader usually working with children cuts open the pumpkin and says, “Did you know that carving a pumpkin for Halloween is a lot like being a Christian?” And everyone thinks, “No way?”  And then as she cuts off the top. “When Jesus comes into our lives…

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! …

Time to Sing

Church worship moved online.  Sports canceled. State of emergency declared.  Panicked shoppers. No toilet paper anyplace.  What a strange and wild time we are living in.   While waiting for the customer service at a Walmart, the worker took a phone call and I overheard her saying, “Sir, it is an epidemic. I don’t have enough…

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…

Ash Wednesday

I don’t know if this took anyone else by surprise — or perhaps some do not even note the liturgical calendar — but suddenly it is /was Ash Wednesday, that day which marks the start of the season of Lent. That season of letting go, of saying “no,” of “fasting,” of saying “yes,” of “adding”…