“Be still and know that I am God.” That is a challenge in this busy, busy holiday season. But at all times there is a reason that we are asked in Psalm 46:10 to still ourselves, to quiet our minds, to simplify our lives: we cannot access the divine wisdom within us, the “still, small […]

“Make haste slowly” has been reverberating in my ears the last three days as I’ve been working on sample table runners for my son’s wedding. Each time I try to start a part of this project, I hear within me to slow down. To not rush. To be relaxed. This is not the way I […]

When we say, somewhat glibly, that God is love, what are we really saying? God loves us. Yes. But more than that, he loves us with an unconditional, unchanging outpouring of love and affection, support and invitation to be in a deep relationship with him, an invitation to step into the fullness of who we […]

  I am sitting in a booth at Chuck E. Cheese while my grandsons play games and rack up coupons. It’s noisy just like it used to be when I took my sons to another one in California 30 years ago. I am thinking about the grace and blessings that I’ve experienced in my life, […]

Humility is a strange concept to us Americans. We are so self-sufficient and self-directed and motivated, that we almost can’t grasp what humility is. It is not a cloak that we wear to subdue ourselves and look like we are “humble” and pious. It is not an attitude that we have to be a doormat […]

I think there are many ways to look at and to experience the spiritual journey. Here is one that I think is quite true to the essence of the journey. In this scenario there are four steps along the way. The first step has to do with acknowledging the yearning within us for more, for […]

“I so want this with all my heart amen” wrote one of my readers, SW, in October this year, in a comment on “The Promise of Isaiah.” She was expressing a deep longing for her whole self to be restored to the Lord and for living a purposeful life. Interestingly, that deep longing is the […]

The truth about our lives is so simple: we live every moment in the presence of God. God is present in every event, every plant/rock/person/animal. God is the interweaving of all life, the glue, if you will, that holds everything together, that connects all elements in the universe. God is the Creator of all and […]

“Our God is an awesome God, there is nothing that he cannot do…” This is a song that my grandchildren learned in Vacation Bible School a few years back. It’s true, our God is an awesome God, but not just in the muscle-flexing ways of the children’s song. God is awesomely mysterious and yet knowable; […]

What is your state of being? Are you anxious? Worried? Angry? Upset? With what are you preoccupied? What haven’t you got that you think you need? Or are you living in peace? Finding joy in your life? Fulfilled? Trusting? Asking about the state of being of someone, their own interior experience, is like giving them […]