Lord, teach me. . . .

Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace. –Eugene O’Neill When you go to church on a Sunday morning, how do you decide where you’re going to attend? Do you choose the church because it’s where you have always attended? Because your whole family always goes there? Is your church of choice the biggest one in town? The one with the jazziest music? The place that makes you feel good, and has Fair Trade coffee? The one where you can “come as you are”? Are you going because the guest preacher that morning has a shiny white smile, and tells you exactly what you already knew and believed, anyway? (Isn’t it ironic? It seems often God likes and dislikes exactly the same people we do !) Where are your friends attending this week? Is that where you’ll show up, as well? What is wrong with all these snapshots? What (or who) is missing? Yep. In every one of these scenarios, Jesus is missing. The one in whom...

When the seasons shift, even the subtle beginning, the scent of a promised changed, I feel something stir inside me. Hopefulness? Gratitude? Openness?  Whatever it is,  it’s welcome. –Kristin Armstrong No matter what part of the world you call home, this time of year brings big changes. While my friends Down Under are watching sings of new growth emerge from the earth as temperatures rise, here in Ohio, the leaves are turning from green to gold and orange, red and brown. The winds have taken on a chill; clouds hang heavy, like soggy cotton, reminding us that soon and very soon, we are going to see the snow . Always different, yet somehow, the same. We depend on God’s eternal ways, and trust that again this year, winter will follow autumn, just like it should. So why is it, as we anticipate and appreciate changes like these, when it comes to so many things in life we pull up short, wrinkle our noses and say No! No change! I like things just the way they are! ...

i thank you god for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes --e.e.cummings There is a story in the Bible ( Luke 17:11-19 ) about ten people with a horridly disfiguring skin disease who cried out to Jesus, begging to be healed. In essence, he tells them: Go now, straight away, and show yourselves to your priest. And on the way, as they walked or ran or galloped, their sores were healed. Can you imagine? It must have been a little like time-lapse photography, as the natural healing process was accelerated. Imagine staring at your hands and watching the sores disappear! My mouth drops open just thinking about it. The truly amazing part: only one of these folks took the time to run back to Jesus and give thanks . Oh, I know there are soccer games and church luncheons, so many things that keep us busy, busy, busy. How often are we stoppe...

Everything ends; you just have to figure out a way to push the finish line. –Jesse Itzler Unfinished business Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a musical genius. He composed his first piece when he was only five years old. At an early age, he was performing confidently before royalty. A true prodigy, music seemed to pour forth from his soul like water from a well. When Mozart died, he had only completed the first movement of his now-famous Requiem . Bits and pieces of nine other movements were found, but Mozart’s final work would never have been completed if not for Franz Süssmayr, an acquaintance of Mozart. Süssmayr not only completed the nine partial movements Mozart had left behind; he added four more, all in the manner and style of Mozart. Throughout history, great works have been left unfinished. Sometimes they remain incomplete, as in the case of the watercolor portrait of Franklin Roosevelt, begun on April 12, 1945. The president collapsed and died later that day, ...