Growing up, Christmas was all about the presents piled under the tree. My favorite childhood Christmas was the year I unwrapped a brand-new pair of ice skates, a record player for my collection of 45’s, and “The Complete Sherlock Holmes.” Heaven! I still enjoy prettily wrapped presents under the tree. But these days my favorite [...]

This is a companion piece for the guest blog I posted earlier today. This chapter appears in “Autism & Alleluias” (Judson Press, 2010), and “A Place Called Acceptance” (Bridge Resources, 2001). For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even [...]

I just started re-reading Parker J. Palmer’s classic, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life. By page 5, I remembered why I loved this book so much the first time, and why I was led to pick it up again. He writes: “On July 4, 1999, a twenty minute maelstrom of hurricane-force winds [...]

And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring [...]

Have you ever given birth? Remember the stage of labor called “transition”? Transition: “A period during childbirth that precedes the expulsive phase of labor, characterized by strong uterine contractions and nearly complete cervical dilation.” Ouch! I’m 57, soon to turn 58. It may be physically impossible, but here I am, in the throes of transition. [...]

Reading Henri Nouwen’s book, Here and Now: Living in the Present, I am pierced by his use of the wagon wheel as a metaphor for our life with God. He writes, “These wheels help me to understand the importance of a life lived from the center. When I move along the rim, I can reach [...]

“And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring [...]

Okay, what is up with this blogging thing? I tell myself I’m going to write a post every week, and what happens? Life happens, that’s what! A book proposal, due. A novel, half-completed and abandoned for the summer. A brother in the hospital, 100 miles away, with life-threatening pneumonia. Bills to pay (which are overdue). [...]