When I think of the Ascension, what comes to mind for me is the word “trajectory,” not just in terms of a final destination, from earth to heaven, but also a course for life – a way, as it were, of getting from here to there. Living in Wonder But that’s a problem. It’s a…

We come to the celebration of Easter from all different places of belief. Some of us are saying, “Yes, Jesus is Lord. Let’s sing and shout, ‘Hallelujah!’” Some of us are saying, “Yes, we know it’s Easter; I guess we ought to go to church.” And still others are not sure what to say, except…

Almost 100 years ago, Evelyn Underhill, British author, mystic and writer on the spiritual life said, “God is the interesting thing about religion.” What she meant by that, and explored in her writings, is that there is something quite ungraspable and yet still intimate about God, not easily defined and yet closer than the next…

As many of you know, I have been paying attention to the awakening that is presently going on at Asbury University. Although the venue for public services has changed, it remains strong, and people in the tens of thousands have arrived to visit the services from all over the world. I read Dr. Craig Keener’s…

At Epiphany, everything shifts. As opposed to celebrating the birth and life of Jesus as we have been doing, Epiphany calls us to ministry, to evangelism, to reaching out. A Simple Call It’s all about Jesus. Epiphany, in fact, celebrates the wise men coming to see Jesus. Jesus, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles,…

In my last post, I shared a Christmas vision or musing with you in which I had the opportunity to go to the stable and take the hand of the infant Jesus. I shared with you how, in many ways, that is a metaphor for our opportunity to embrace eternal life and also for the…

I want to tell you about a vision I’ve had during the season of Advent. This is not a thunder-and-lightning vision; it’s more like musing, where I go to the real stable. I walk up to where the manger is, where the baby lies in the manger, and I want to just sit down, take…

In our last post, we discussed St. Francis of Assisi and the call to follow Christ through what becomes a repeated cycle in our lives: leaving, cleaving and serving. Leaving Leaving, in fact, looks like what Paul says in the book of Galatians: “May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord…

When I think of Francis of Assisi, whose feast day we will celebrate on Oct. 4, a part of me is speechless. What do you say about an iconic medieval figure, one who prefigured the entire Renaissance? What do you say about somebody who changed, permanently, the culture of both Western Europe and the church?…

Recently I found a quote online that I thought fitting for this time in our history: “No church gravitates toward unity. We have to contend for unity against the gravitational pull toward selfishness and hypocrisy” (Barnabas Piper). But in our contentious culture, such words can be easily misunderstood. Contending for unity does not mean drawing…