-
Aging with Joyful Engagement, Rather than Leisure or Resignation: Thank you Shirley Frey
According to a survey conducted for Civic Ventures reported in Time magazine, 24% see retirement primarily as “a time to enjoy leisure activities and take a much deserved rest,” like the couple reported in Reader’s Digest who took early retirement at 59 and 51. “Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.” According to the survey, 59% of older Americans see retirement as “a time to be active and involved, to start new activities, and to set new goals.” A time to create, to study and teach, to grow and share food, to tell and write stories, to…
-
World weary? “All Things New” Torches our Hope
Even as I load this post into Engage, the stock market is plunging over a cliff. I,000 points down, which must have triggered a rebound. Now roller coastering back up. Now plunging again in just the time it has taken to type this paragraph. Sometimes reading my Facebook page feels the same way. A friend's three-year old dies. Another gets a stunning prognosis on lung function. I've spent hours this past week talking with women in the throes of such horrific trials that all we can do is grieve together and pray. Sometimes I get bogged down in chronic weariness over our political trench warfare or going…
-
A Christian Response to Growing Accusations that Trump is Mentally Unfit
In December Dr. Bandy Lee, a Yale Psychiatry professor and the editor of a book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, was invited to address congressmen and women about accusations that Trump was unfit to hold the office of president. And when, in a tweet to Kim Jong Un, Trump recently boasted about his “bigger nuclear button” she released a statement: “We write as mental health professionals who have been deeply concerned about Donald Trump’s psychological aberrations…We believe that he is now further unraveling in ways that contribute to his belligerent nuclear threats.” The movement began with a petition,…
-
Start November by Giving Thanks for the Reformation at 500 Years
What does the first post to go viral mean to us personally? Suppose you wanted to know God and follow him. How might you get to know him? Where would you begin? Maybe you’d like to read what he said…500 years ago your only option would have been a Latin Bible. Maybe you’d like to go to church…500 years ago your only option would have been a Latin mass. You could pray…but suppose you felt unworthy. You wanted to come before God but felt you needed to begin by confessing your sin to him. You would need to confess to a priest. Rather than merely listening to…
-
Finding Meaning When We Can’t Find a Motive
An LA Times headline blares “What drove Las Vegas shooter to kill? We don't know, and it drives us crazy” I watched the most riveting story on CNN of a woman who held the hand of two Las Vegas shooting victims as they died. She wanted to honor the moment of their death with a caring, loving presence, staying with one body for hours until his girlfriend could come and be with him. Meanwhile she was constantly in contact with his girlfriend and his mother, telling them every detail of his passing, listening to their tearful remembrances and stories of his life. She wanted to make his death more meaningful.…
-
More Important than Taking a Knee or Standing…
There comes a point where an American citizen cannot honor or celebrate what this nation has done. To do so would violate a conscience that simply cannot value what this nation values. Should that citizen be compelled to show honor or celebrate on pain of losing a job? Or paying fines? Suppose we are not talking about NFL football players taking a knee, but citizens who could not in good conscience honor or celebrate a gay wedding. They could not use their artistic expression to create flower arrangements or make cakes or calligraphy invitations. Should they be fined so much that they lose their business? That has…
-
Things Are Feeling a Little um…Apocalyptic Lately: Is this God’s judgment?
Like an opening fanfare we experienced a total eclipse of the sun. As a native Houstonian living in Columbia, South Carolina, we've been writing checks and sending Facebook touches to Harvey-flooded friends back home and lashed down our deck furniture in anticipation of Irma. What are the odds that two of the worst hurricanes in American history would hit back to back? And then there’s Maria coming right behind… Friends who were headed to Montana cancelled. Montana is choking on the smoke from fires that have burned over 1,000,000 acres this summer. The schools in Olympia, Washington, where my cousins live, have cancelled sporting events because of the smoke…
-
Do Things Happen for a Reason, or By Chance? Brief Answers from Christian, Modern and Postmodern Worldviews
In The Year of Living Biblically A.J. Jacobs, general editor of Esquire magazine, writes, “Julie [his wife] always told me that things happen for a reason. To which I would reply, Sure, things happen for a reason. Certain chemical reactions take place in people’s brains, and they cause those people to move their mouths and arms. That’s the reason. But, I thought, there’s no greater purpose.” We all long to know where our lives in particular and history in general are going. Does everything happen by chance? Or is God directing the course of human events with purpose? Are our lives part of a larger story (a meta-narrative) that’s going…
-
Two Reasons We’re Celebrating Forty Years Together
We were young and deeply in love. Making big promises we had no idea what it would take to keep. Maybe that is part of God's grace. We don't know what we don't know. But before long we began to get an idea. Jack and I share so much. We are both strong personalities. ("This will not be a boring marriage," said our pre-marriage counselor-pastor.) We are both thinkers. I love discussing books, movies and ideas, talking theology and politics with him. We both enjoy travel adventures together, and back when I could ski we delighted in riding the lifts and swooshing down the mountains together. But in…
-
If I Ran the Zoo: A visit to Noah’s Ark Encounter
On our way up I-75 into northern Kentucky I found myself thinking about a Facebook friend, a Christian and a movie critic who works in Hollywood. Heading into a newly released faith-based film, she’ll post a little movie-critic prayer, “Dear Lord, please help it not be cheesy.” We were on the first leg of my Mom’s bucket list trip, headed to the Ark Encounter, a theme park with a Biblically scaled ark. I’m happy to report this ark is not cheesy. From the outside it’s too big to be cheesy. It looks…epic. And a little too gleaming? God told Noah to build the original out of wood and cover it with pitch…