You see someone looking in the mirror. Looking. Looking. What is he thinking? Better still, what are you thinking? Too much attention to his reflection — easy to suppose he likes what he sees. We mock the self-absorption of mythical Narcissus, falling in love with his reflection in a pond. But we also fear what […]
John Wesley’s OTHER Secret to Building Community
Once upon a time there was a kite. It had a wonderful time when a certain little kid would take it to the park. It caught the wind and soared high. It loved to be close to the clouds — but it longed to fly higher. “This kid is holding me back. I could go […]
Role Models in Forgiveness
“Unforgivable!” That’s the cry when we are really hurting. I suspect sometimes it means “I can’t forgive that quite yet.” However, sometimes it sounds more like we are working with a confused definition of forgiveness. When I hear people talking about forgiveness it often sounds like they are thinking “Forgiveness means the wound in our […]
Simon Says: “What Do You Need?”
Last week I was blogging about the guidelines for prayer offered by the Heidelberg Catechism and I whizzed right by one that some may find troubling. When we pray, says the Catechism, we are supposed to ask “for everything God has commanded us to ask for.” It sounds like we are playing the spiritual version […]
Putting The Pieces Together About Prayer
Some Christians can make prayer seem like bit of a puzzle. Not that they portray prayer as confusing — far from it. They make it more like a jigsaw puzzle: once you get each piece in the right place (and they only fit one way) the picture emerges automatically. In the puzzle theory of prayer […]