“The voice we should listen to most as we choose a vocation is the voice of our own gladness.  What can we do that makes us the gladdest?  I believe that if it is a thing that makes us truly glad, then it is a good thing and it is our thing.” Frederick Buechner –…

“At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year’s planting.” Annie Dillard – Pilgrim At Tinker Creek I jotted the quote above down in my journal last year.  As I re-read it now it holds even more truth than it…

I just listened to a talk Brian McLaren gave at Mars Hill Church (i.e. Rob Bell's not M. Driscoll's.)  He was talking about the various "stories" we are all born into contrasted with the new (radically different) Story that Christ came to tell of, live out, and invite us all to be re-born into.  I…

Just got back from a church retreat at Lakeside Bible Camp on Whidby Island.  I highly recommend retreating as a church body.  It's been a number of years since we were able to do this (although we do have a similar thing on the other continent we call home.  Still not the same thing…)  Some…

I had a dream last night I was being chased by King Kong.  No matter where I went (window, hallway, or door) I could not evade those wrinkled, opposable digits and grappling ape hands.  While inside my house I was relatively safe, but when King Kong has your house under siege, how safe are you…

This quote really popped out at me today: "When it comes to crises or events that really upset us, this I have learned: you can have God or you can have understanding.  Sometimes you can have both.  But if you insist on understanding, it often doesn't come.  And that can create distance between you and…

We floated down the Missouri River yesterday on inner-tubes.  Using our hands as paddles we navigated the slow, steady currents and tried to keep our bodies out of the chilly water and baking in the clear sun.  The strong breeze pushed us downriver fast.  Everything in Montana, Idaho, and Washington state is aflame in green…

"I realize there is nothing more astonishing than a human face…It has something to do with incarnation…Any human face is a claim on you, because you can’t but understand the singularity of it, the courage and the loneliness of it." –from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson And for more photos by Jeremy Leffel, click here…

A few days ago a friend of mine sent me this fascinating Seattle Times article entitled “Are We Grown Up Brats?” The article (read it!) talks about how the current generation (Generation Y or the “iGeneration”) is being defined as increasingly narcissistic, easily dissatisfied due to growing customer expectation, impatient, easily offended, and with an…

A friend and I were having a discussion recently about what it’s like to take this journey of faith.  We were sharing our personal struggles in finding God’s guidance in light of our circumstances in this fallen world.  My friend, who lives in a different part of China from where I live, was saying that…