Scientifically speaking, friction can be a very useful force. It enables you to walk down the sidewalk without falling on your butt or sliding out into the stree. And on the street, it keeps the tires of passing cars responsive to the turning of the steering wheel and, thus, off the sidewalk. It is what enables a rock climber to defy the forces of gravity and a parachute to slow the descent of a skydiver. Ironically, without friction, our lives would be at a standstill. We couldn’t go anywhere.  The same force that enables motion in proper amounts, though, is…

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:22-23 These are two stand-alone verses in the middle of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, sandwiched between “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” and “no one can serve two masters”.  “Healthy” eyes belong to the person who sees the world as it really is – and I think that would include…

“Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw   I am very willing to admit I might be wrong.  It occurred to me long ago that chances are mighty slim that I am 100% correct in all my beliefs and opinions – my judgments about politics, theology, entertainment, as well as the character of friends, coworkers, and enemies.  Now, believe me, it sure FEELS like I am right about absolutely everything I believe, but everyone else feels the exact same way, even people who hold beliefs that are diametrically…

What would it take to push our current American culture towards valuing – perhaps even celebrating – changing one’s mind? Could we brand it as “rethinking” rather than “flip-flopping” or “being inconsistent” or “lacking conviction”?  Maybe a good slogan would help.  “Second thoughts are often better thoughts.“ Would it take support groups where adults sit in a circle and confess to each other, “Sometimes I’m wrong”? Perhaps we would need to start early in grade schools with curriculum teaching cognitive biases and logical fallacies. And how to recognize the soft spots in our own thinking. And maybe someday we will…

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’” (Matt 9:37-38)  When I reflect on God’s sending my family to Haiti in 2013, several aspects of that sending stand out years later:  As I consider the future and as I (somewhat) patiently await God’s next “sending”, I can’t help wondering in what ways the next might resemble the first. 

I am struggling to understand why the Lord allowed us to be sidelined. We sacrificed so much to move our family to Haiti and we LOVED the people there and we LOVED living there. It was good Kingdom work. These lines from Matthew keep running through my head: “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’” (Matt 9:37-38)  The “harvest field” is anywhere there are lost people who need to hear the gospel, anywhere extra hands are needed…

I have a vague memory from my childhood which related to me an important lesson about politics (and really all of life). I suppose Ronald Reagan was president at the time and I knew enough about politics to know that my parents were pretty firmly in the Republican camp. On one occasion,  I remember hearing my dad say something critical of Reagan. I could not hide my surprise: I thought we were Republicans – how can we be critical of a fellow Republican? Dad explained that sharing a political belief with someone does not automatically insulate against criticism where it…

Throughout my childhood, I thought THE most boring topic in the world was anything having to do with politics. After college I began to find interest in politics and tuned into talk radio. At that point, politics became a way to feed my sense of self-righteous anger.  Eventually I decided that any radio host who could maintain that level of outrage for three hours a day and five days a week was either faking it or incredibly unhealthy. Either way, I decided it was best not to keep listening.  Nowadays, I am largely immune to politics-induced anger and I find…