I LOVE this world, in the kind of way that I believe the Bible tells us to love the world.  I love the intricate biosystems of the human body, and the remarkable ecosystems and varied lifeforms that all contribute to our planet.  This ordered life is the thing the Bible calls COSMOS, for that is exactly the Greek word for “world”.  Sunsets.  Laughter.  Human touch.  Sleep.  Food and drink.  The glory and mystery of each human face.  Snow.  The arrival of birds in the spring.

The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy… but I have come that they might have life!  – Jesus the Christ Each untimely loss is tragic, but the fame of these two not only creates a breadth of grief, it highlights the untidy reality that suicide rates are on the rise, dramatically.  45,000 take their own lives each year, twice the number as deaths by homicide.  It’s the 2nd leading cause of death among the 15-34 demographic.  As a pastor I know the devastation it leaves behi

Christ followers are exiles.  Accept it.  We always have been, always will be.  When Paul said “maranatha” in I Corinthians 16:22 he was declaring that our deepest and most profound hope is rooted in the return of Christ.  He’d know well, of course, that the state wasn’t ever going to provide some sort of theocratic rule of law.  He never hoped for it, never advocated pursuing it, never even indicated that it was a possibility.  Paul never said, “If we can just get a few more

The rest of our lives, it’s a different story, especially if we’ve been taught to love Jesus.   We’ve often learned that darkness is unequivocally bad.  Every verse mentioning it says so, linking darkness with Satan, and all else worth avoiding in the world. As a result, we’ve managed to find ways of banishing darkness.  We’ve caste it out of the natural world by lighting up the night so that we don’t need to deal with it at all until we close our eyes for sleep (though our e

I understand that the literalists will have a problem with Rohr’s statement, but the point is essentially accurate:  Our divisions are mostly losses, not gains.  Since Jesus made unity a climactic request in his final prayer,  taking steps toward reconciliation, unity, and love for all people, is perhaps one of the most important things we can be doing.  Here are some recent thoughts toward that end: Here’s a manifesto on unity.    I spoke it the week after Charlottesville in

Behavior needs to match mission, right? They did it “according to the book”.  With too many passengers and not enough seats, they asked for volunteers to give up their seats on this flight for a reward, and fly later.  You know, by now, what happened on UAL flight 3411.  Before it was over, a passenger was forcibly, violently dragged from the plane, getting bloodied in the process.  This gave birth to a viral video of the scene, leading to a public relations nightmare and an

Over 37 years, two stockings have become ten. JOY! It was in the late summer of 1976 when I first made my way north to Seattle, Washington.  I was headed to a new college, having changed my major from architecture to music.  I drove up from California and every mile north of Sacramento was new territory for me.  I’ll never forget seeing downtown for the first time and being overwhelmed by it’s beauty.  It’s proximity to the the water, it’s view of the mountains, the relativel

It was a low point for me in my seminary career. “If he’s right, I’m finished” I remember thinking to myself.  I’d later, in a psychological profile exit interview from seminary, be labeled, “spectacularly unambitious”.  I wear clothes I like, clothes that make me feel comfortable, because when I’m comfortable I’m creative, and when I’m creative, I feel better able to contribute my gifts to the world.  Well connected?  I grew up in Fresno; knew no authors, no CEO’s, no politi

Give, give, give, means that there can be only one response.  Receive, receive, receive.  We can’t earn the gift that is Christ.  We’ll never be able to repay or reciprocate.  We can only receive, like little children.  My granddaughter, who just turned one, will be with us this Christmas and I promise you that she’ll have no problem receiving gifts without any guilt.  There’ll be no, “Rats!  Grandpa gave me some overalls and I’ve nothing for him.”  There’ll be a pattern to h

During the days between now and Christmas, I want to share some reflections with you about the many gifts that are part of the One Gift that is Christ.  I’m reflecting on these gifts because, more than ever, I see the deep divisions and violence in our world.  We who claim to follow Christ are at grave risk of becoming part of the problem rather than part of the solution if we aren’t careful to maintain what Paul calls the “simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ”.  When

Joyful Noise at Taproot Theater is not to be missed. I’ve been to lots of funerals, partly because I’m a pastor and partly because death visited my family on a regular basis from my high school days until now.  Only once, though, was there a choir at a funeral I attended and that was at my dad’s funeral which is a bit stunning because we were a decidedly non-musical family.  He was baseball and track, so trips to San Francisco were always about Willie Mays, not opera or the s

Scientists are discovering that humans are also profound beneficiaries of the forest.  “Forsest Bathing”, which simply means to walk in a forest and pay attention to your surroundings while doing so, has been shown now, in numerous studies, to have profound health benefits.  Lower pulse, blood pressure, and respiration rates are just some of the proven benefits.  There are some who believe that prescriptions like this will be seen in the not too distant future. Though the ben

From “The Jesus Storybook Bible” by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Yesterday, in the church I lead, I spoke on the importance of reading the Bible on a regular basis, fully realizing that this kind of exhortation is sometimes received as well as telling a vegetarian they need to have a steak for supper. For many people the Bible is fraught with difficulties, including: 1. Failed attempts at reading it consistently in the past, due to lack of understanding, which leads to a sense of frust

“snow on snow” (12 feet, or 4 meters for my Europe friends) as the Christmas carol says, the house was dark because the power had gone out.   As a result there’s darkness, and lots of it.  This far north on the earth, with this many clouds, our world is dark most of December by nature; without intervention we’re in the dark about 17 hours a day!! Inside, a few candles dispel the total darkness that would otherwise be ours.  Now, into our fourth day of power outage, I’m musing

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand. from Rainier Rilke’s “Book of Hours” the church I lead will host a “longest night” service.  It’s offered because behind all the

“Peace be to you” says Jesus, standing in the midst of the disciples, in a room with a locked door where he’s suddenly appeared without it opening!  Their stunned silence is understandable.  After all, Jesus, the one upon whom they’d pinned their hopes, the one for whom they’d left everything, the one who they’d betrayed and denied, the one from whom they’d just fled as he hung on a cross, was dead.  Not, “as good as dead”—actually dead, and with that death, so died their hop

I’m sitting here on my weekly day of Sabbath, staring out the window at fir trees laden with wet, dripping life down onto the soil and melting snow below.  There are candles; a fire in the wood stove and choral Christmas carols fill the room.  Warmth.  Good coffee.  Beauty.  Shalom. I’m thinking, “Wouldn’t it be good to sit here bathed in this kind of peace and beauty the rest of my life?” until I remember Jesus’ words a little bit later, after that bit about the “unforced rh

In two weeks I’ll be home, preparing to meet people in the church I lead who I haven’t seen in nearly three months.  Their priceless gift of a sabbatical has blessed me with a rare opportunity for extended time away from church life, American culture, and the day-to-day responsibilities of my job.  As a result, I’ll return restored spiritually and emotionally, refreshed and stronger physically (up to around 500k in hiking, running mileage now), and challenged. I’m challenged

It’s our last hike, the end of our forty days trekking through the Alps together.  I’ll begin teaching next week and thinking about re-entry to life in Seattle, while my wife will spend the weekend with friends, retrieving sheep from the high Alps in anticipation of upcoming snows. Our final trek will take us to Guttenberghaus, significant for its beauty, and its proximity to the Torchbearer Bible school where I teach because I can see this hut, perched high in the Dachstein

We’re waiting for the cable car that will haul us up to the Douglass Hut, the base from which we’ll be hiking over a couple of passes to another hut.  We’re waiting at the base of the lift, gazing skyward.  All we can see are two cables disappearing into the clouds.  Eventually one of them begins dancing, then the other, and finally, 150′ above us, we see something mysteriously appearing out of the grey, taking form as the cable car.  A horn sounds, and soon the car is “parke