Our Weekly Devotionals are created by our staff and members to inspire reflections and conversation.
With a Little Help from My Friends
Our annual church stewardship campaign has just kicked off and the timing couldn’t be any more perfect for me to share my thoughts on giving (and receiving). If you ever needed a vivid and true example of what stewardship means, what it means to have the support and care of your community, go ahead and have yourself an unexpected surgery and see what happens.
We Help
“I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees!”
We all remember Dr. Seuss’ children’s book The Lorax, about a shortish and oldish and brownish and mossy man who fights against the mass destruction of his Truffula trees from the hands of the greedy Onceler. This story comes to mind when I think about my brother looking up toward the heavens to the top of a giant sequoia tree in Sequoia National Park, admiring its majesty, its towering height, its time on this planet.
Eye Contact
“Now look into my eyes.”
It was nearly the end of our busy week at Lacor Hospital in Northern Uganda, and people were starting to take pictures so we could remember. A few of us were posing with Sister Rose, head nurse at the hospital. Rose is funny, helpful, knows everything and everyone and is fully in charge. She’s been in this position far longer than the ten years I’ve been traveling there.
“This and That”
This past weekend Roxanne and I visited the Cahokia Mounds, a UNESCO world heritage site right in our “backyard” - just a few miles east of downtown St. Louis. Walking the grounds of what a thousand years ago was the largest settlement of indigenous Americans north of Mexico (estimated at between 10,000-40,000) was quite the experience.
Stereotypes
We had our garage sale a few weeks ago, and it went well. We live in a cul-de-sac, so we could watch the cars drive in, people get out and casually saunter over to our tables full of stuff. The one I completely failed to anticipate was the elderly gentleman who bought my mom’s entire doll collection.
The Door
“Sometimes when you push open one door, you find another door.”
That’s something a friend said to me recently. It was meant in a positive way – about the discovery of the unexpected. About pushing into new territory, imagining what you will find there. And then, instead of what you expected – you discover a whole new world of possibility.
We Choose to Go to the Moon
Religion's purpose is to inspire. We believe because it offers us comfort and clarity in a confusing and cacophonous world. So, when religious language and sentiment are used beyond the scope of religion, that use is often powerful. Last weekend, while I was in Central Florida, I paid a visit to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) - the preeminent spaceport here in the United States.
Beautiful Gifts
“Hey Kel, I need your help with something…”
So begins a text message that suddenly spikes my heart rate.
His texts were usually like that – frantic, urgent, and apocalyptic. He sends me articles from The Atlantic that are 46 pages long about everything from politics to polar bears. My brother’s moments in his life have always been characterized by that – intensity.
Higher Ground
I’ve had the Stevie Wonder song, Higher Ground playing on repeat in the back of my mind for weeks now. The song was released in 1973, coincidentally the year Roe v. Wade became law (I was 8 years old), and its lyrics have proved to be evergreen. Depending on how you see it, the song is proof that the problems of our country and our planet are intractable and evergreen, too. After all, here we are fighting some of the same battles today as were being waged then.
Anchors
“Hello Handsome Mr. Kitty!” “Here’s your breakfast sweetie!” “Do you want to go for a walk sweet girl?”
These are the phrases that tumbled from my lips countless times over the past few weeks, as I fed, walked, and cared for my cat and my dog.
“Sometimes It’s Just The Little Things”
This week I saw something so beautiful, so simple, so unexpected, yet so profound. For weeks, my wife and I both have seen our neighbor’s lilies burst forth only to wonder when, or even if, ours might do the same. Frankly I’d begun to think it just wasn’t going to happen at all. Then it did. Just like that two gorgeous orange lilies arrived in all their fragile, temporary splendor.
Linen Napkins
A few events have converged resulting in our need to have a garage sale. Last year my parents moved from a large house into a much smaller apartment. Jonathan has been helping an elderly neighbor clean out her house. Also, I’ve been actively working on identifying any “linen napkins” we have.
Family Fabric
We finally made the trek to Connecticut to celebrate my mother’s life, almost a year and a half after she passed away. I’m not sure why our time together felt so remarkable in every way, but everyone there felt it.
Johnny Appleseed
One of the stories that's stuck with me the longest from elementary school is that of Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845), the pioneer who walked across much of the old Northwest Territory (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) planting apple trees everywhere he went. His path was followed, the story goes, by the American settlers heading west across the Appalachians from New England and the Mid-Atlantic states.
1.5 Mass Shootings a Day
As I read about yet another mass shooting this morning – this time in Philadelphia – I was struck by the following statistic:
“There have been at least 239 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. CNN and the archive define a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.”
Did You Love Enough?
"Did you love enough?" If your answer is "yes", you will enter heaven, or so thinks author Paulo Coelho. I like his philosophy. Four simple words, nothing more or nothing less.
In a Mirror, Dimly
I’ll admit I shrug too much. And say I don’t know. And am quiet and unsure among people who seem confident in their knowledge. But the older I get, the fewer strong opinions I carry.
Each Day in May
Here we are well into the month of May: the month I wish would end tomorrow and the month I want to go on forever. I would love to flip the calendar so I can enjoy evenings again without lesson planning every night. I would enthusiastically “peace out” one of the most difficult years of teaching my colleagues or I have ever experienced.
One Wild and Precious Life
That Mary Oliver line, more like a Bible verse than a coffee mug cliche’, comes to mind a lot more now. In the nine months since our younger child went to college, leaving the care and feeding of only ourselves and the dog to worry about, I’ve wrestled with the question of purpose.
Transitions
May is upon us, and with it the month of graduations, Mother’s Day and abundant blossoms. Graduations in particular are salient for me. I’m approaching the end of my graduate degree, and I’ve begun to reflect on the end of this chapter and what will become the beginning of the next one.