Perpetual Embarrassment

Back several months ago my car was totaled. The road was icy. The temperature was cold. The driver was inexperienced. The hill was steep. And the bend in the road fairly sharp. All this combined equals a destroyed rear-end of a car. The rear-end is worth more than $3000 in damage repair. The car still…

500 Words Per Day: Air Hockey, Holy Spirit & Church Boards

I've been thinking about God's Holy Spirit. And I have also been thinking about church. To be sure, I've been thinking about Christians. I've probably also been thinking about myself and how in some way or other I have had experiences with all three. I suppose the experiences haven't always been the best of times…

500 Words Per Day: Thinking about the Pursuit of Ambition

Eugene Peterson wrote, "The great weakness of North American spirituality is that it is all about us: fulfilling our potential, getting in on the blessings of God, expanding our influence, finding our gifts, getting a handle on principles by which we can get an edge over the competition. And the more there is of us,…

500 Words Per Day: Grace

Grace. "It's a name for a girl" (U2). Grace falls all over us and colors us clean. Grace marks as children of the living God. Grace prevails upon us when we have no clue who we are, what we are doing, or where we are going. Grace guides, teaches, sustains, and reveals to us the…

500 Words with Acts: Grace

I'm spending the month of May reading through the entire New Testament and I am now finished with the book of Acts (actually finished a couple of days ago). When I was reading it I came to chapters 13-16 where I saw something I had either not noticed or not paid attention to in past…

500 Words per Day: Laughter

I teach special education. That might be evident by the address of the blog; maybe not. Either way that is how I make a living. It's not an easy calling, nor is it always fun. It's daily challenging, but I am a trained professional so I take it all in stride. Many days there is…

500 Words with John’s Gospel: Greater or Lesser

I came across a startling idea when reading John's Gospel and it has to do with greatness or greater. Great. Greater. Greatest. We have fun ways of delineating hierarchy in the English language. I always enjoy seeing words like 'greater' in a text because it makes me wonder what's just 'great.' It happens in John's…