Perseverance Chapel July 1, 1987 – June 1, 1988! What a name, right? Perseverance! As a fourth-year seminary student, I took the weekends-only pastoral position at this small, country, Southern Indiana church. The church’s name seemed to be my own life motto — to “try harder,” to “work more.” The congregation was thrilled to welcome…
Tag: camino
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! …
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”…
The importance of Last Things
It was Maundy Thursday 1983. That is the service before Easter Sunday that celebrates the last night Jesus spent with his disciples. I was sitting in the choir at St. Mark United Methodist Church in Santa Barbara, California. Jimmy Gibson was preaching. Jimmy was an Irish-born evangelist then in his 70s. He’d retired to Santa…
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…
Just Plain Lost…
“Just plain lost.” That’s what this guest in worship had written on his prayer request card. Life was tough with surgeries, with financial issues, with housing, then he wrote those three telling words which caught my heart. I had never read a clearer lament. Lost. That pervasive sense of hopelessness and despair. I reached out…
Cancer, Control and Freedom
I have many partial blog posts that I’ve written but haven’t published any for a month. This has been for multiple reasons — the heart, the mind, the stress, the feeling of inadequacy, the dealing with shame, or more likely, shame dealing with me. When I read this post by brother David Beck, a man…
