Like Cyrus, I’m not a preacher anymore. After lunch with some friends, I sat for an hour in a stupor, then headed to a long Elder’s meeting. Just after 8:30 I arrived at home, where I threw in a science fiction movie I was curious about, but ultimately uninterested in. After flipping channels for awhile, [...]
Entries from August 2009
August 28, 2009
Where Heaven and Earth Meet
The nest is empty again. Amy’s back in Cincy, and Daniel made it back to Ann Arbor late last night. The house was quiet, and Anjie and I talked, quietly thankful for our kids. Funny…with our children it’s easy to see and celebrate the two different worlds of what-has-been and what-will-be. Intersecting worlds of that [...]
August 27, 2009
Meaning of Life 1.6 – Incarnation
For those who might want to catch up with the Meaning of Life posts (they’re spread out over time), here are the links. Meaning of Life 1.0 – Intro Meaning of Life 1.1 – The Glory Before the Beginning Meaning of Life 1.2 – God Makes Meaning of Life 1.3 – The Initial Image Meaning [...]
August 26, 2009
Is War the Best Metaphor for Prayer?
On my daughter’s 21st birthday, cherishing the time we’ve had together, and the joy it has and will continue to bring me, I have a question about our life and communication with God. Is it all about war? “Prayer warriors” is a term that comes up a lot in conversations, referencing, of course, the spiritual [...]
August 25, 2009
21 Years of Amy
Reflecting on a daughter… 21 Years of Amy (to borrow a phrase). I can’t remember what it was like before her, really. I have memories of pre-Amy days, but they’re all colored with the knowledge of her coming. I even have a couple of pre-birth letters I wrote to her, though I didn’t know her [...]
August 24, 2009
Letting Go: What I Meant to Say
Letting go is a ruthlessly practical matter. Actors get bound up by inhibitions, fear, and wasted muscular tension. Relationships go south because wrongs committed become posts to wrap fists around. New careers go unborn because persistent, outdated self-perceptions just won’t fade. At this juncture in my life–one more sermon to preach, a new play rehearsal [...]
August 21, 2009
Meaning of Life 1.5 – A Broken Maker
This one’s short and to the point. After the fall, life…goes on. The mandate is the same: Image-carriers of God, now broken, relationships all out of whack, carry on. The tasks of ruling and subduing and multiplying and bearing fruit and tilling and keeping and cultivating the ground…all of them still operative, still at the [...]
August 20, 2009
Bee Stings, Kingdom Honey
I had an ah-ha yesterday, one that is going to impact my thinking for quite awhile.
The word “Jeffrey” means “peace” or “the peace of God.” When I learned that as a child, somewhere inside I took on that word as a kind of mantra, wanting to live out the meaning of my name. Jesus said peacemakers would be called “sons of God.” I liked the sound of that. To this day, it gives me a sense of wholeness to be able to say to people “Go in peace” and mean it. I like keeping the peace, and take proverbs about turning aside anger with a soft word pretty seriously.
As good as all that sounds, my peacemaking can sometimes be little more than an excuse to avoid reality and/or conflict. Stephen Sondheim says it best in Into the Woods: “Nice is different than good.” Peacekeeping can slip into cowardly niceness pretty quickly. For some reason, God has this front and center in my mind these days, and I’m having to change some of how I approach things, saying truth more quickly and forcefully than I’m used to, and it’s not terribly comfortable. All I can ask my friends to do is be patient as I figure this out. But truth is where I want to live, holding kindness high as I live there. But Carly Fiorina’s statement at the Summit hit me between the eyes: “Truth is the kindest form of management.” She meant management in business, but I think it’s true in whatever you’re managing, including yourself.
August 19, 2009
Meaning of Life 1.4 – The Broken Heart
When was the last time you lied? Substitute the word “lusted” for lied, then “stole” for lusted, then “coveted” for stole, and keep going, making new sentences with new verbs describing the ways the human heart can go wrong. This morning’s news has death all over the place–Baghdad, Afghanistan, Siberia, Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas [...]
August 18, 2009
Meaning of Life 1.3 – The Initial Image
After a week off for the Summit and other stuff, let’s get back to the meaning of life. Here are links to the discussion so far. Meaning of Life 1.0, Meaning of Life 1.1 – The Glory Before the Beginning, Meaning of Life 1.2 – God Makes Let us make human beings in our image, [...]
