Saturday Mornings

Our response shouldn't be, "as long as I can (cover it), it doesn't matter to me...".

' Poem for the week' -- "The Factories": I have shut my little sister in from life and light    (For a rose, for a rib...

Your work is your own private megaphone to tell the world what you believe . -- Simon Sinek So, what am I working on? What are you wo...

One of the great ironies of life, it seems to me, is that growing old (or dying) often becomes about waking up . The gospel of the day is...

The agency of change is not coercion, it is space . We can even be some of the space, for someone else, that allows them to  change .

I've noticed ...that, in general, I am fascinated by people. The exception being, of course, those who hurt me (at the very least, fas...

To be a priest is to know that things are not as they should be and yet to care for them the way they are. -- Barbara Brown Taylor

On the Lighter Side : Sometimes I use words I don’t understand, so I can sound more photosynthesis. -- Anonymous

Instagram:  bobgoff A setback isn't your enemy; it's your teacher . -- Bob  Goff

' Poem for the week' -- "I Cannot Sing": I cannot sing, because when a child,     My mother often hushed me.  The oth...

Solitude is a place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born, the place where the emergence of the new man ...

I've been feeling disconnected lately. Every time I feel disconnected and seek connection externally, it never seems to really work. ...

If we don't change , we don't grow. If we don't grow , we aren't really living . -- Anatole France OK—we get it!  At s...

I'm wondering ...who am I, in anonymity? In other words, how much is my sense-of-self predicated on acceptance , not to mention approv...

The Perennial Tradition constantly recognizes that we are part of something more than we are observing something. Read that again: we are pa...

From Michiana Chronicles : I can pinpoint the exact moment when I realized most American women of a certain age dye their hair. I was a ...

Visual - "Loaded Down": Winona Lake, IN Loaded down  feeling of cold nothing seems alive except the memory of your vi...

The more you have , the more you may be  afraid to lose. This is not only true for our material lives; it is true for our social and pol...

Ever noticed ...when loyalty is weaponized—usually used to pit something (or someone) against ...something (or someone) else, not to mention...

You are meant to grow , change , and adapt.  You are not meant to wear the same shoes you did at 15, or 30, that you did at 5.  The same...

I've noticed ...as a 9 on the  Enneagram , I don't tend to believe (operate) that truth is as much resident within me, as it is acc...

God’s seed is in us. If it were tended by a good, wise and industrious laborer, it would then flourish all the better, and would grow up to...

I suspect if you asked, most people would say they hate gloaters. Those people who, fresh off some kind of apparent victory (or even succes...

That’s unlikely. If I’m lucky, I can glance at them. But just for a second or two. Our fears burn so bright that if we truly face t...

As I’ve come to understand that life “ composts ” and “ seeds ” us as autumn does the earth, I’ve seen how possibility gets planted in us e...

Sometimes, albeit not too often, I get bored with the way I think . Does that ever happen to you? Do you ever get bored with what you think ...

Our most creative ideas don't tend to come when we're consciously focused on the problem. -- Scott Barry Kaufman

I've noticed ...when someone adds a little something extra to what they're doing, it moves me. Recently, I saw someone do this on ...

Instagram:  aaronieq As I stumble out of the certainty & fear of overly-conservative faith, I'm praying to stay clear of the c...

' Poem  for the week' -- "Music": There is music, deep and solemn    Floating through the vaulted arch When, in many a...

More than an evolution of ideologies , real  growth  leads towards  love .

I like ideas .  I love ideas that work on the ground-level.

Cynicism is lazy. -- Rob Bell

Ever noticed ...good guys aren’t always good...and, bad guys aren’t always bad? In spite of how obvious this is, a little acknowledgemen...

It’s well-established that the gap between the middle class and those who earn the highest incomes in the United States has grown wider ov...

Snow throws on us a blanket of silence , saying, "It's time to be quiet".

God walks “slowly” because he is  love . If he is not love, he would have gone much faster . Love has its own speed. It is an inner speed. I...

Art  begins with receptivity. -- Mirabai Starr Is our receptivity inhibited by all our hurry ? Does it take an artist to point this ou...

Life is not a race—the goal is not to beat other people, get there first, and take more of whatever you can. In the end, it is rarely abou...

The tail of hate is incredibly long, but that of love is even longer.

Related to  yesterday's post : Our choices reveal our intentions . -- Simon Sinek

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends . -- Martin Luther King , Jr. Life's m...

Instagram:  sarcasticlutheran I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive.  Oth...

First comes love, then comes marriage (or some modern equivalent), then comes the inevitable really stupid fight you keep having over who th...

From Michiana Chronicles : "Much of life is really about revision, re- imagining ." "Friendship is a revelation....

Instagram:  bobgoff Fear and insecurity will always try to talk us into settling for lesser things. -- Bob  Goff

When I encounter a truly helpful thing (reading, music, art,  nature , relationship) that I am drawn to—the nature of its descriptiveness of...

Love means care of, respect for, and delight in our own selves and bodies . -- Anne Lamott

I'm wondering ...what my life would be like today were it not for those I share life with.  How would I be different without them?  What...

We cannot know God only by thinking thoughts. Unfortunately, for much of Christianity , faith largely became believing statements  to be tru...

A few years ago, a friend, who was a successful insurance agent, invited me to attend a high-end luncheon. The hotel ballroom was filled w...

But in fact, just about everything is a portrait. It’s our temporary understanding of the world as it is, not an actual experience of it...

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the Universe about us, the less taste we shall have for the dest...

Some people say too much; others don't say enough. A lot of the time, both are motivated by some type of ego protection. I have an ...

It is hard for us to heal wounds that we pretend do not exist. -- Hillary McBride

I've noticed ...that the range represented in the last two days' posts is a reflection of the range that seems to naturally operate ...

There was a time in the 1980s and 90s, when the response to the hypocrisies in the church was to start new, creative expressions of church—...

A commenter going enigmatically by “notme” once responded to my rundown of a controversy over Scripture classes in schools: "What h...

' Poem for the week' -- "The Year": What can be said in New-Year rhymes, That’s not been said a thousand times? The...

Generally, the first half of life is devoted to the cultural process—gaining one’s skills, raising a family, disciplining one’s self in a hu...

As another year recedes and new one dawns, I feel mindful of a couple of things—things that, on the surface, even seem a bit divergent. O...

All this is to say, if your present community sees your spiritual journey as a problem because you are wandering off their beach blanket, ...

I've noticed ...that, as a 9 on the Enneagram , I have a constant low-grade scanner that is monitoring both threat and opportunity.  As ...

Too much of Christianity is built upon absolute certainty and not enough on divine mystery. -- Mark Wingfield The source of our dis...

The US moved down because of recent tax cuts.  But, the budget deficit rose 26%, too!

Why is it that we can often so much more easily see the  beauty  and  courage  in someone else, than we can ourselves? What If ...this is ...

What we see is what we know. But, there comes a time when we know things that we can't see.

' Poem for the week' -- "Christmas": The bells of waiting Advent ring, The Tortoise stove is lit again And lamp-o...

Visual - "Just Another Tree ?": ...perhaps not:   Celebrating an Eternal Advent

Ever noticed ...that there is a spiritual quality in vastness ?  The ocean, mountains , the skies...all intimate something beyond our grasp ...

Fear suffocates the good news that God's grace is expansive .  Fear cannot tolerate that someone else's story is different than ...