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The Island Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life He must have been too hot to touch, that ancient elder of Ephesus, or the Roman authorities probably would have taken him in much sooner than they did… Maybe they were concerned that, since he was so beloved, there would have been a strong reaction in Ephesus, the number two city in the Roman Empire, if they took him into custody. Ephesus was a place where they did not want any unrest. Whatever their reasoning, by the time they exiled him he was in his nineties, perhaps frail and declining in health. His…
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The Grace Wilderness
Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken Wilderness Wanderings Series: Learning to Live the Zigzag Life A Majority of One Among a Minority of the Many Some men are a wilderness in themselves. Full of anger and hatred, they lash out at others like a fire-breathing dragon, setting the entire landscape aflame. Saul of Tarsus was one such man… Apparently a small man based on his comments about himself, he made up for his size with a brilliant mind. Saul grew up in a devout Jewish family among the Gentiles in Tarsus, then part of Syria in the Roman Empire (now modern day Turkey). It appears that his growing…
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Five things every child needs (Part 1 of 5)
Hannah had just turned 16 and couldn’t wait to drive her bright, new, red, shiny sports car. Even though she didn’t have her license and had not taken her driver’s education class, her parents gave her the keys and turned her loose to drive. This sounds like a terribly bad idea, right? To drive a car safely we are required to take a course, practice, take a test and then we are given a license to drive. To teach school, to scuba dive, to operate machinery, to fly a plane, to practice medicine, a person has to be taught, and given certifications and licenses. However, when it comes to having…
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The Commencement Address I’ll Never Get to Give
Graduations mean commencement addresses. Most of which are eminently forgettable, containing feel-good charges to go do great stuff and change the world. But in my experience, they’re always given by men, who are some kind of celebrity. I am neither. But I have a few thoughts on practical life lessons that newly-minted graduates might use. “Hey graduates, congratulations. You made it to the cap-and-gown stage. Not without a lot of help and prodding and prayers and frustration from your parents though, right? Thank them. There’s not a single thing you are or do or have that they didn’t have a part in. Thank them again. “Speaking of thanking, one of…