Lord, teach me. . . .

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” –Mary Oliver So much to do in our lives, and so little time, it seems! It’s not enough simply to talk on the phone or work at our computers; we need to do both at once—while watching one TV program and recording a second one for later! We have our cell phones, voicemail, email, forwarding—all so we won’t miss out on a single thing. We have convinced ourselves that we can (and must) “do it all,” yet sometimes we miss the moment, precisely because we are mentally someplace else, thinking about the next item on our To Do List and missing the Christ in our midst. We have become a society of ridiculous multi-taskers. Maybe it’s time we slowed down a bit. Like Martha in Scripture (Luke 10:38-42), we can become so distracted by the many tasks and “stuff” in our lives that we have difficulty focusing on “the better thing.” For many of us, winter becomes a chance to slow down a little, sleep in, eat mo...

There are two kinds of people in the world, givers and takers. Takers eat well; givers sleep well.  –Danny Thomas There’s an article that came out in the New York Post about Mayor Bill de Blasio and an interesting, somewhat controversial decision he recently made. It seems the mayor has decided to convert the former Park Savoy Hotel into a homeless shelter for 150 residents. The shelter, the first of 90, is expected to open in March. Sounds great, right? Believe it or not, not everyone is happy about this, because right behind this soon-to-be shelter is a region of Manhattan known as Billionaire’s Row. And these folks are not happy. There goes the neighborhood. Before even a single person moves in, the haves have decided there is no room at their inn for a single have not . “Those people” will ruin everything, they say. How can we be safe? How dare the mayor conceive of such a program? I think it’s kinda cool. We, as a nation, have so much to offer. S...

A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just. –Pope Francis So far in Cleveland, 2018 has given us of frozen pipes and furnace failures, snow forts and icy rivers. Some days, the cold seems to seep straight into our bones. The sunshine, while brilliant, does little to warm the frozen landscape. Then came the warm-up. The frozen landscape turned to mud; frozen rivers jammed up and leapt their banks. A real weather roller coaster. It’s been challenging. And we have survived. These are the days when John Wesley would ask—and listen for the answer: How is it with your soul? Have you experienced a “spiritual winter”? A season when, despite brilliance and light all around, our soul feels cold and alone? God can seem so very far away, his voice barely a whisper (if we can hear God at all). Spiritual winter comes to each of us, perhaps for a day, a week—or a seemingly interminable stretch. And then, when we least expect it, a warm spell, often comi...

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; snow had fallen snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter long, long ago. –Christina Rossetti I admit it: I am a fan of winter. I really am! I love the way sparkling snowflakes catch the light as they fall on quiet landscapes; listening to the crunch crunch crunch of frozen snow underfoot; the pristine beauty of fresh drifts of snow, patiently waiting for giggling children to make perfect angels, or a towering snowman with a carrot for a nose. But the other side of winter has settled over us, the frigid, dismal, isolating side. Warm jammies and hot cocoa are my new best friends. The kitties snuggle up close and refuse to be disturbed. I’ve decided that sometimes, there’s just no good reason to go outside. Period. It is midwinter. And it is bleak. And yet. Underneath that cold, crusty surface, something miraculous is going on. God is at work; new life is incubating, tender shoots of springtime lying in wait for t...