Spirituality
I Don't Want to be a Good Christian Anymore
God, sometimes I feel like I’m not a good Christian in Your eyes, like You’re a Father disappointed in me, frustrated, wishing I would do more, be more, and I wonder are You proud of me? Am I a good Christian? Do I make You smile? I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to…
Read MoreWhy I Love Barack Obama
I keep having this dream. I’m at a park, or a convention, or at the White House, and he’s there too. I wait around for the chance to talk to him for a moment. When he sees me, I hug him. I tell him that even though I don’t like all his policies and stuff,…
Read MoreYou Can Be Free
“Brothers and sisters, you can be free!” The words came fast and rushed up from inside my heart. I hurried to write them down, driving on the freeway scrawling nearly-unintelligible phrases on the nearest scraps of paper I could find. That was a month ago. Now I’m sitting here on this cold Wednesday morning when…
Read MoreAgainst the Wounds
Warning: There’s a heartbreaking, disturbing image in this one. I was going to write something different today, but I don’t want to anymore. This has been a terrible week, and the words I was going to toss into the air would have felt empty and worthless in the whirlwind. So instead you get this –…
Read MoreAll I Know
“But one last thing,” she asks. “How has Jesus dying on the cross healed you?” A bunch of words bounce through my head, and I’m not sure what to say. We’ve been discussing atonement theory for the better part of an hour, but those phrases are just a bunch of words now. Theological phrases fall…
Read MoreWhy Abuse Is Not Discipline
Warning: I’m going to talk about physical and verbal and sexual abuse. I used to be a big fan of talk radio. I used to drive around Minneapolis in my beat-up two-door Cavalier with a McCain sticker on the back, jamming out to the sweet sounds of Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.…
Read MoreThe Lily and the Storm
It seems that every new season brings another round of fisticuffs in our nation’s debate about marriage. Inevitably there are strong voices on all sides of the conversation, and I find myself sitting here overwhelmed with the noise of it all. But last week, as the voices escalated once again, a friend sent me these…
Read MoreWhen We Criticize the Church
We were sold a package deal. Truth and lies, hope and despair, real and fake – all tied up in a neat package with a bow and sold to us with the label of “Christianity”. The men in the suits with all the words told us that what they taught was true. They said it…
Read MoreI Don't Want to Be a Christian Anymore
“I think I don’t want to be a ‘Christian’ anymore. Because in the middle of trying to think, talk, and act like a Christian it’s easy to forget to love God and be loved by Him.” – from my journal (2008) Christian. It’s just a word, and words only have meaning because we agree that they…
Read MoreIn the Vacuum
A few weeks ago I got a very kind e-mail inviting me to be part of the A Deeper Story crew. Having admired many of these wordsmiths from a distance, I was thrilled to join them. My inaugural post on Deeper Story is about a depressing Hemingway post (of course). I’ll let you see the…
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