Enjoy these wonderful words from John Chryssavgis on “leastness,” and G. K. Chesterton on the youthful vitality of God Himself: ?The kingdom is already granted to little children, not, I think because of the subjective qualities that we tend to appreciate in them, such as their cuteness, their smallness, or their playfulness. The kingdom is […]
The Real Value of Relationships
Here are some?insights from Kosuke Koyama?s book Three Mile An Hour God. ?I think you?ll appreciate what he has to say here about the real costs of technology and the real value of human relationships: ?Our technological resourcefulness is making our life expensive and lonely. Technology is ambiguous. It can enrich and impoverish our life. […]
Faith Like an Iceberg
Weird title, I know. It comes from something I reread in Elton Trueblood?s sermon ?The Discipline of Discipleship?? ??we know that our public religious life is likely to be thin and shallow if the inner disciplines, especially those relating to prayer and to scripture, are not kept up with absolute regularity. Prayer is obviously central. […]
The Nature of Blessing
?Gem. Yes, that?s my name. G?E?M. It?s not a nickname. It?s not short for anything. My dad took one look at me when I was born and said, ?What a Gem!?? I?ve had this conversation more times than I can count. Most people follow?up my explanation with something like??Aaaaawww, how sweet!? ?It is sweet. […]
The Courage to Care
Elton Trueblood continues to be an author of influence in my life. The words below are more than fifty years old, yet are timely to me today: ?A prominent philosopher of England has suggested the wisdom of using ?caring? as our best modem translation for the almost untranslatable Greek word, of which the thirteenth chapter […]
How Do I Begin My Day with an Awareness of God?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a little book entitled,?Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible. It was shortly after this book came out that the Nazis prohibited him from any further publications. I was struck by the paragraphs below on the strategic value and importance of morning prayer. I understand that some of us aren?t morning […]
Classic Spiritual Counsel for Anxiety
I love reading classic letters of spiritual direction. The quotation below is a piece of classic counsel for ?nerves? (which, I think, would probably correspond to what we would call ?anxiety? today). ?Personally I believe that the cure for nerves is an attempt at contemplation. I hope this does not sound absurd. But it seems […]
