I set the ball between the two teenagers. One of them held a bat. The other an orange cone. I yelled, “Go!” They just stood there. Awkwardly. Embarrassment and frustration showed on their faced. And […]
Category: Relationships
A better dad than I am
Like all dads, I make my fair share of mistakes. I try my best with my kids, but I am quite far from perfect. But despite my imperfect parenting, I think I’m a pretty good […]
The ugly side of grief
There’s no fun side to grief. There’s nothing about it that makes me break out in cheers. There’s a reason why we try to avoid it and, when we can’t do that, why we try […]
In the morning & in the mourning
Almost every night for the past two and a half years, I put my Dad to bed. We did the same thing every night. After visiting with one another for a while, it’d be bedtime. […]
The holes we leave behind
We all leave holes behind when we die. But not all holes are good holes. Some are more like bullet holes, gaping wounds that scar over badly. But as I look at the holes my […]
Watching my Dad’s last breaths
As I write, I’m sitting across the room from my Dad and he breathes shallow breaths. I feel like I should be counting them. They will be his last. I’ve watched at least a hundred […]
Why the system is broken
I take breaks from the news and social fairly often. What I read can be too much for me. So, I need to walk away for the sake of my emotional and spiritual health. There’s […]
Dear Black America, I’m listening
The worst I’ve ever feared from a police officer is a traffic ticket. And the roughly ten times I’ve been pulled over, I’ve never worried about things escalating to the point of being removed from […]
The Naughty List meets Psalm 87
Some people rub us the wrong way. And in some cases, they’ve been rubbing us the wrong way for a long time. That history pulls us into negative patterns like ruts in dirt road. It’s […]
How Coronavirus affects our mental health
Anxiety arises from knowing about something and being unable to do anything about it. And our globalized, always-on information era provides not just a deluge of information, but a deluge of anxiety as well. In […]
You are not a personality type
You are complex. You cannot be reduced to a single number or to a four-letter personality type, as the Enneagram and Myer-Briggs tests try to do. There’s far more to you than that. But we […]
A thought on ending racism
The way to tighten the bonds of a group is put them through an ordeal, to make their lives difficult, to make them feel persecuted, to make their cause seem unfairly attacked. The way to […]
Taylor Swift’s False God
I have three teenagers and we listen to a lot of music. I also coach high school volleyball and lead a discipleship training program for teens. I am around teen culture a lot. I don’t […]
Living among Samaritans
Opening prayer Lord, I find myself unsettled by the people around me. I don’t like their politics. I don’t like their practices. Most of the time, I just put up with it. But sometimes, I […]
Practicing attentiveness
I’m finishing a couple-month break from blogging, giving myself some space and time from the overly inward exercise of writing. I needed to get out of myself and focus on the outward aspects of life. […]
Farewell, Gordy
The day after we lost Jan Peterson, we lost Charles Gordon Strom, a father figure to me whose influence at a pivotal time in my life has left an indelible mark. My first encounters with […]
Farewell, Jan
On May 10, 2019, our friend Jan Peterson died, joining her husband and my mentor, Eugene Peterson, just seven months after his death. Jan lived much of the last three decades of her life in […]
Thermometers or thermostats?
Thermometers measure the temperature around them. Thermostats change the temperature around them. Every day and in every situation, I have the choice to be a thermometer or a thermostat. I can join in with those […]
Turning people into problems
A friend of mine may be losing his job. One of his co-workers (we’ll call him Larry) has decided that my friend (we’ll call him Jeff) is the problem in his life and that his […]
Psalm 45 – the wedding psalm
A rendering of Psalm 45, the only psalm about marriage.
Give yourself away
My youngest son is addicted to the piano. He plays it for hours every day. He watches endless videos of people playing piano. He spends his money on piano books. He falls asleep listening to […]
The only way to experience more of God
“Lord, we want more of you in our lives.” It’s a prayer I’ve heard many times and have uttered more than a few times myself. It usually precedes a time of gathered worship as a […]
5 questions to ask when our prayers get wonky
The question isn’t if my perspective is skewed or not. The question is: How bad is it? No two of us experience the world the same way. The uniquenesses in my eyes cause me to […]
When we lie to ourselves
For most of my adult life, my job has been to listen to people. As a journalist, as a pastor, as a chaplain, I’ve asked people questions and listened to what they’ve said. I’ve heard […]
Psalm 133
A rendering of Psalm 133, where the wisdom of unity brings healing and life to a broken land.
Betrayed
When the letters started circulating, my Dad didn’t know who was sending them. Their slander was anonymous, pot shots on his character taken by an unknown sniper. Eventually, he figured it out. But by then […]
You are not a number
Try to go a day without using any number. It’s almost impossible. Look at a clock, there are numbers. Cook food and you’re setting a timer. Send a letter and you’re using an address. Make […]
The unexpected spirituality of marriage
If there’s anything the Western world is infatuated with, it’s infatuation. We love love. We are swept off our feet by romance. If we believe in anything, it’s that the greatest achievement any of us […]
True love loves truth
Can we stop pitting love and truth against each other? I’d much prefer a radical commitment to both.
Laws exist where love doesn’t
The only reason we need laws is because we lack love. Laws exist to protect relationships. When our relationships are robust, there’s no need for laws to protect them. But when the bonds tying people […]
Yahweh
I used to be bad with names, and I was OK with it. That’s until I met Ray. Ray and I were slated to direct a middle school retreat at Lakeside Bible Camp, where we […]
The true & generous life
I don’t get to edit the Bible according to what I like or dislike. I don’t have the arrogance of Thomas Jefferson, who chucked out whatever he found primitive and unenlightened and kept the moral […]
When life gets hostile
There’s something delicious in mocking or frustrating authority. Most of our sit-coms are based on it. Dre in Black-ish is constantly being foiled by his family and by his circumstances. Michael Scott in The Office is continually […]
Young parents, be patient with yourselves
I was with a group of friends last night, most of which are parents of young kids. It was a riot! Almost literally. And I loved it. The decible level was probably beyond the safe […]
From weapon words to worship words
Can you hear them? They talk about us Telling lies Well, that’s no surprise Can you see them? See right through them They have no shield No secrets to reveal It doesn’t matter what they […]
Telling meaningful stories
We all tell a lot of stories and listen to a lot of stories. It’s one of the main ways we humans communicate and make connections with one another, pulling past experiences into the present moment […]
Some things are better broken
Some things are better broken. It’s being broken that makes some things what they are, and I’m not just talking about the eggs in an omelet. The armless Venus de Milo is one of the […]
Becoming motherless
My Mom is dead. How do I even wrap my mind, my heart around that statement? Every day of my life, my Mom has been there. She may have been miles away, but was always […]
If you don’t need your community, you don’t have one.
I was with a friend who had gone through a major life trauma and he was talking about a conversation he’d just had with another friend. “He told me, ‘Don’t put any expectations on me,’” my […]
Thor: Ragnarok & life in America
Marvel Studios has ruled the box office for more than a decade, spinning out movie after movie in the most lucrative franchise since James Bond. At the heart of their financial success, I believe, is […]
6 steps to defusing passive-aggressive relationships
We humans are polarizing people. Our actions create opposite reactions. That Facebook friend who rants against Trump actually creates Trump supporters. Strong conservative stances create liberal stances. We make our polar opposites. In our interpersonal […]
Judged!
“How dare you judge me!” “Who do you think you are to judge me like that?” We hate to be judged by other people. We hate being looked down on by self-righteous prigs. But sometimes […]
Unmasking our idolatries
Idolatry is not a thing of the past. It’s very much alive and well in my heart and yours. The only difference between modern idolaters and ancient idolaters is honesty — they were the honest […]
The humbling path of growing old
As I watch my parents in their twilight years, I think about the inevitability of my own impending elder age. At 50, I’m still in fairly good shape physically, but I know the decline is […]
Raising #NotMe kids in a #MeToo world
I’ve been saddened over the past few weeks to read the #MeToo stories of women abused by Harvey Weinstein and others. And that sadness has deepened into grief as women I know personally have added […]
Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein & the abuse of women
I used to love Bill Cosby, but I can hardly listen to him anymore. I memorized so many of his hilarious stories when I was in junior high, I could recite them word for word. […]
17 ways to foster neighborliness
We have lost the art of being neighbors. Our cars have killed it, keeping us from walking our neighborhoods as we jump into them and speed away without talking to anyone. Our phones have killed […]
When the silent God speaks, what does he say?
Silence is hard to interpret. In fact, an argument from silence is considered a logical fallacy. And yet, we try to interpret the silences of others on a regular basis. We question what people think […]
On turning 50
I’ve been saying the word fairly frequently over the last few months, trying to get my mouth used to it. “Fifty.” It’s got a nice, clean sound to it. It’s not cumbersome like “forty-seven.” And […]
Love is inconvenient
Love is inconvenient. Love is getting up in the middle of the night to clean up a child who has thrown up. Love is driving out of your way to be with a friend for […]
Hugh Hefner, Playboy & the death of sex
I remember the first time I saw a Playboy magazine. I was about 11 and an older neighbor has stolen a copy from the nearby 7-11. Not yet to puberty, it didn’t have the effect […]
Asking the “second question”
In every conversation, the first question is a simple connecting question. “What’s your name?” “How’s it going?” “What’s up?” “Nice day today, isn’t it?” “How about those [insert sports team name]?” There’s not a lot […]
Back to zero
There were Alcoholics Anonymous meetings every day of the week at the church I used to pastor. On three days, there were two meetings, for a total of ten per week. They pretty much owned our […]
The importance of boredom
Something unexpected and disturbing happens quite often when people gather around a loved one who is dying: They get bored. In my work as a part-time hospital chaplain, I've seen it many times. In response to […]
Wonder Woman & the problem of violence
We need strong women in movies and fiction. The helpless, screamy women of far too many movies offer little to the imaginations of girls and boys who see them on their screens — girls who […]
Let’s talk about death
I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies this year. Some of them were elderly and should have known their days were limited. Others were fairly young and assumed they had years to go before even […]
The awkward wonder of Mother’s Day
As a kid in kindergarten, I used to pick flowers for my mom from front yards on my several block walk home. She loved the sentiment but gently stopped me from destroying our neighbors’ gardens. […]
Prepare to be offended — cussing, political correctness & the word “like”
At a party we hosted, we set down one ground rule for the evening: No using the word “like.” That’s it. Malefactors would be required to put a sticker on their face for every use […]
Still my hero at 91
Yesterday was my Dad’s 91st birthday. He was 42 when I was born, so I’ve only seen the second half of his life, but I’m so grateful for what I have seen. He has shown […]
Set your mind on these things
Our minds are marvelous things. How we think shapes who we are and how we live. I’ve come across so many posts and articles by people who’ve had personal Renaissances during a season of Lent […]
Happy “Love One Another” Day (also known as Maundy Thursday)
“What the heck is Monday Thursday? And how can it be Monday when it’s Thursday? I don’t get it.” For most of my life, the churches I attended ignored the Christian calendar. But when in […]
Tell all the truth, but …
One of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems goes as such: Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning […]
A sliver of glass in our hearts
In Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Snow Queen, he tells a series of seven stories. The first of these is about a demon-made mirror which shatters into tiny pieces which are scattered around the world. The pieces fall […]
A return to neighborliness
I didn’t vote for Donald Trump and I didn’t participate in the Women’s Day marches, but it’s essential to me that I am in neighborly relationships with both sets of people who did. Neighborliness requires […]
Learning to listen
The family was in crisis. A young mother in critical condition. Two small children. Family gathered around her bed, praying for her. Life on the line. Hearts on the line. As I watched this unfold […]
Men & grief
When my sister was killed by a drunk driver, I came face to face with grief for the first substantial time in my life. I’d been touched by death before, but never this closely. Never […]
Leap first
“The intellect is there to instruct us after the act.” — Ray Bradbury A few years ago, I took a flying leap off of a rock high above a river. But I jumped too far out, […]
Unowned
I used to be a Coke guy. I refused to drink Pepsi because Coke was my brand. But then one day, I realized that I had let a soft drink manufacturer own me. I was […]
Sin kills
We had finished dinner and were sitting at the table talking about a passage I had read from the Bible. It was a fairly bloody passage about the different kinds of sacrifices God had commanded […]
If the church isn’t a community, it’s nothing
The church exists to be a sign of the breaking in of the kingdom of God into a world of torn apart relationships. The church does not exist to sing songs; to listen to sermons; to […]
From checklists to nuanced living
I was recently a part of a large conversation in which a woman talked about her daughter who had recently accomplished the amazing feat of hiking all 53 fourteeners — mountains topping 14,000 feet of elevation […]
Truth & feelings
In a culture where feelings are king, we have little tolerance for truth. I’ve watched someone be shunned for the past two years by those my friend spoke a simple but powerful truth to. It was an […]
Old words that won’t go away
I was pulled aside by the staff leader of the camp I was working at one summer. I was expecting a pat on the back by was shocked by angry and cutting words I didn’t […]
In a world against things, what are you for?
As our presidential election cycle continues to heat up, I’m reminded of the challenge a friend of mine posed on Facebook last time around, a challenge that went mostly unanswered. He asked his many Facebook […]
A glorious experiment in failure
“All we are saying is give Pete a chance.” The crowd was into it, singing along with the band a cheesy version of John and Yoko’s “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” […]
Away on Father’s Day
My dear kids, thanks for making me a dad. I’ve been a father for 19 years now, thanks to you, and this is the first Father’s Day that I’ve had to be away from you. […]
Recovering the lost art of friendship
I picked up the phone yesterday and called Steven, a friend of more than two decades. He couldn’t answer right away but called me back as soon as he was free. Now, Steven and I don’t […]
Pain gives definition to life
I celebrate the anniversaries of friends whose marriage survived the dark and harrowing days after his infidelities were discovered. I celebrate the birthdays of the son of friends whose asthma has almost taken down to […]
How little things become heavy things
We dumped everything out of my son’s backpack that he didn’t need to take to school that day. What was left was about 1/3 of what he’d stuffed into it. And when he put it […]
The best Mother's Day poem ever & the meaning of grace
As a kindergarten kid, walking home the few blocks from school, I would pick flowers from the front yards I passed and give them to my mother when I got home. My gesture was both […]
Peace by piece
This is a busted up world filled with partial people, including me. It’s telling that the words heal, health, and whole all derive from the same root. To be truly healthy humans, we need to […]
Clovers & how to keep a marriage alive
Soon after my wife and I were married, we were visited by her aunt and uncle and together the four of us visited a botanical garden. In the gift shop, Aunt Bev bought a small […]
Evil is real — the Gospel according to Harry Potter, part 2
My kids were too little to read and take in the Harry Potter books when they were being written and released, so my wife and I waited for, bought, and read aloud to one another each […]
Or quietly tiptoe away
I make mistakes all the time. We all do. It’s a part of being human. We all get that. And we all get that there are some mistakes that are bigger than others. If I slip and […]
I don't like what you said, but it doesn't make you wrong
My feelings were hurt by something I had overheard and I was determined to get even. So, I wrote a nasty letter. (This was back in the days when people wrote letters.) In it, I […]
The case for pity
“Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart” – J.R.R. Tolkien We live in a culture that wants nothing of pity (other than self-pity). We never want to give someone else […]
Creating islands of community in a sea of loneliness
In the book The Martian (which the movie is based on), an astronaut is accidentally left on Mars during a storm when the rest of the crew believes he is dead. He survives all kinds of […]
The not-knowing of being a parent
“So, Mom, you raised five kids. What did you learn?” We were sitting in the small family room of our tiny one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver. My parents had come more than 1000 miles to see […]
Celebrating marriage — including the dark parts
“Marriage is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” I was sitting in Eugene Peterson’s class on Ephesians at Regent College when he said those words. He didn’t elaborate and I think I missed the rest […]
Unforgiven
I love the Lord’s Prayer — except for one phrase. There’s one line in it that trips me up. It’s the second half of “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” I rely […]
The stories we tell ourselves & the truth of our lives
I know who I am by the stories I tell to myself. The same is true of my relationships. People who are happy in their relationships tell themselves happy stories from their relationships. They remember past […]
Getting what we give
If you act like a bull in a china shop, don’t be surprised if people treat you like one. If you’re a shrinking violent, don’t be surprised if people pass you by. While it’s not […]
Among quarreling neighbors
One Sunday we came back from worship to discover that one of our neighbors had torn down the short fence between our properties and replaced it with a taller, uglier fence. There had been no warning. […]
Get over it!
If you’re an adult, you’ve had experiences where people have said and done hurtful things to you. I have. We all have. They were painful. They were inappropriate. But they’re over. Done. Gone. In the […]
Death by packaging
We’ve got a packaging problem. A recent article in the venerable Atlantic suggests that those plastic coffee pods that make Keurig brewing machines so convenient and popular are adding tons of the non-recyclable, non-biodegradable plastic K-cups […]
For those of us who are grieving
As those who live in this tragic beauty called life, as those who live at the intersection of sorrow and joy, we approach death with a strange mix of emotions. As those who follow Jesus, […]
Tell me I'm wrong
Some of the most important moments in my life were times when people who cared for me pulled me aside and told me I was wrong. As kids, people told us we were wrong all […]
The difference between judgment and judgmentalism
There is a Judge. And it’s not me. Neither is it you. Everyone who has suffered injustice longs for a judge who will render a just judgment, because that means liberation (from prison or slavery […]
Can we "love the sinner and hate the sin" or not?
The phrase “love the sinner and hate the sin” has come under fire recently. Many question whether it’s really just a whitewashed version of hating both sinner and sin. Included in this questioning is the […]