Dick Lucas, rector of St. Helen’s Church (London), says that one question worth asking as we read the Scriptures is, "What is surprising in…
Discernment Exercise: Tsunamis and a Good God
On December 26, 2004, the massive tectonic plates under the Indian Ocean shifted, and the most powerful earthquake in 4 decades rumbled across the…
Discernment Exercise: Hiding Assets: Friend or Outlaw?
As I travel and speak, it isn’t surprising to me that some of what I say is challenged by some who hear me. It’s…
Discernment Exercise: Choosing our Spirituality
In the April 2007 issue of Sun, a literary magazine, the editor featured an interview with John O’Donohue, an Irish poet/philosopher and former priest.…
Discernment Exercise: Offensive Magazine Cover?
The editor of Discipleship Journal, a bi-monthly magazine published by The Navigators, reprinted a piece by me in their January/February 2007 issue. It appeared…
Discernment Exercise: Loving Lesbian Neighbors
As Christians we believe that living faithfully before the face of God includes treating non-Christians as persons made in the image of God. As…
The World According to Abercrombie & Fitch
Culture / Discernment / Ordinary Life
What do a naked man and woman sitting on a horse bareback have to do with selling T-shirts and shorts? Everything, if the clothes…
Overfed but Undernourished: Reality Television
In many ways, Reality TV may be the best example of many characteristics of television in the future.” ~Herb Terry (associate professor of communications…
Decorating or Desecrating the Temple?
Culture / Discernment / Faith
I was recently at a social gathering with friends when their four year old daughter began pointing at my arms and exclaiming that she…
Seduced by Death (Herbert Hendin, 1998)
Books / Discernment / Ordinary Life
I had gone to visit Grandpa in Groningen, Holland, for the last time before coming to the United States to study in January 1996.…