“Sometimes in small ordinary ways we experience the presence of God, as in the ability to get out of bed in the morning and keep our children alive. Other times we know for certain in the way a particular thing has fallen out, by its timing and our lack of control over it, that we’ve…

Now that those of you who read my blog and also are on my mailing list have likely received my April newsletter, I guess it’s safe to post it here. I’ve hinted a bit in previous blog entries about difficult things happening. This explains further. A blessed Easter to all! —alm When I attended Ash…

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” —Psalm 139:13-14 It was a dark and stormy Wednesday afternoon. The date was January the eleventh. The time was 2:30. I was…

The more I tune in to the source of my own being…, the more anger, sorrow, and fear seem confined to the shallows of my personality, while my true self — and yours, and that of every being — is like a sea whose depths are always tranquil, however troubled the surface may become. Pain…

It’s 10:30 (MST) on Thanksgiving evening, and Lana and I just returned from seeing the new movie, I Walk the Line, a biopic of Johnny Cash. We aren’t sure exactly when this movie opened—last weekend, maybe?—but it was packed. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who thought a Thanksgiving movie night was a good idea….

My mom celebrated her 64th birthday yesterday (Monday, October 24), the same day my friends Sarah and Jeff welcomed their third child into the world. Little Jack joins two sisters, Alison (who turned four in August) and Taylor (who turns two on Christmas day). Welcome, baby Jack! And happy birthday, Mom!

My archive of previously published articles is not exhaustive, and for that reason, I hesitate to post them all too quickly, should a serious writing drought strike sometime in the future, as it inevitably will. But this essay is timely, and so I’m posting it now. This past weekend marked the one-year anniversary of my…

Here is another post-birthday blog entry, as I never got around to logging on yesterday, the actual anniversary of my birth. Just shy of my eighth birthday, I was the new kid in school (for the first, but definitely not the last, time). I met a girl in my third grade class named Lisa, and…

Yesterday was my birthday. To commemorate the occasion, my friend Jenn treated me to dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant. (Thanks, Jenn!) The bill arrived with the requisite fortune cookies, and mine read as follows: The aim is useless without the way. Deep. I think. (Seriously, my first response upon reading this was, “Huh?”) Meanwhile,…

It would be easy for us to simply fill up a summer with meaningless activity, but I believe that the summers are meant for healing, growing, and preparing for what is ahead. May the Spirit be in all that we do. This how my friend Chloe, who works for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, closed a recent…