A Life-giving, Transformative Ordinary

Hospitality / Ordinary Life / Safe Place

What does God want with so many stars and black holes in infinite space? What is God’s plan on rainy nights when the wind…

The Uncomfortable Path to Maturity

Maturity and Flourishing / Spirituality

Long before I heard the term, disequilibrium was a part of the process of growth in my life. It’s the term educational theorists use…

A Poetic Endnote on Sleep

Scripture / Work and Rest

I know that some people think me a little compulsive for always glancing through the endnotes of books by authors I respect. Endnotes aren’t…

Finding Silence

Work and Rest

Sometimes silence can communicate far more than words can imagine. In St John’s Revelation, the last book in the biblical canon, the apostle is…

Culture Care (Makoto Fujimura, 2014)

Books / Maturity and Flourishing / Visual Art / Work and Rest

Beauty in Life An important word for artist Makoto Fujimura is generative, by which he means anything that brings beauty into life to bring…

In Praise of Inefficiency

Work and Rest

One proof of capitalism’s success can be seen in the unquestioned assumption that its values always contribute to human flourishing. Efficiency and productivity, for…

Seeing beyond the traces

Creation / Faith / Spirituality

One of the things I love about winter in Minnesota is how tracks are left to tell a story in newly fallen snow. In…

I Am Addicted to Diversion. Are You?

Maturity and Flourishing / Pluralistic World

Here are two anecdotes, and the point I want to make. One. This past weekend I checked a spy novel out of the library,…

A Very Comfortable Alienation

Community / Hospitality / Maturity and Flourishing

There is a phenomenon slowly spreading over the social landscape that is worth noting. I suspect it’s been around since the moment our first…

Hearing amidst the clamor: 4 reflections

Maturity and Flourishing / Spirituality

On learning to hear A couple of years ago I published an essay on Art House America that I titled, “On Learning to Hear.”…