Roy Orbison sings "Pretty Woman" as the man by the window, white earplugs delivering his preferred white noise, ruffles the paper, sets it down, and stands up to leave, almost as if he can feel me observing, writing about him. A buddy and he walk out the door, into the rain, calling back over their …
The Last Station
What is love? It's an appropriate question to encounter on the day before Valentine's Day, and Saturday afternoon, the question appeared with force in Michael Hoffman's film, The Last Station, starring Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, and Paul Giamatti. (Spoilers ahead.) The Last Station chronicles the last tumultuous days of the relationship between …
Grace and Work
Peter Block, in The Answer to How is Yes, makes a simple pair of statements. "...it is never efficient or inexpensive to act on our values. There is no such thing as cheap grace." Chris Goldman attributes the theology of grace to Paul, pushing back against Paul's naysayers, asserting that without him, our understanding of …
Another Thanks
Every once in awhile, I am reminded to be grateful. In the midst of devastating earthquakes, the loss of children, the despair of loved ones, and the slow slipping away of life and vitality that waits for all of us, there is still so much of life. It is all grace to begin with, from …
In Secret
I'm plowing back through Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount. It never gets old. In Matthew 6, Jesus says (essentially) to be careful about what you do in public. Dallas Willard calls this this principle of secrecy. Pride is insidious, and even as we make a move to be generous or kind or …
JEFF BERRYMAN 