Here and Now

I've been writing - fiction, songs, autobiographical stuff... I have this unquenchable urge to create right now. I wonder if that's how God felt. If it was like, "I have to do this. I can't wait to see it all unfold." I dunno. That's how I feel. I don't know if it's appropriate to talk about God "feeling" anyway. But I think that's one of those strong connections to God that we have - to be in the image of God is to be creative. I know people say they aren't creative, but everyone I've ever met is creative - just in different ways. The math whiz shares more with the piano prodigy than either of them would probably recognize. The painter and the landscaper - the bowler and the sculptor. The singer and the speaker - the mother and the doctor. It is when I stand back and look at what people do that I see the genius and the creativity in their lives. My uncle owns a trucking company and he's a great mechanic. In fact, he...

My grandmother came over to see Rachel's first speaking role in a church musical. She was Angel #5. She was amazing. Okay, the girl who played the whale (it was called "Oh Jonah!") was the show stopper - but, you know, Rachel's my little girl - and she was fantastic! But that's not the point. Gram handed me a small package. Inside were these two small new testaments and this grungy little folder. She said that she's pretty sure the tan NT was her father's and that he took it when he shipped out for World War One (you know, that war 5 or 6 wars ago that was the "war to end all wars"...sigh...). It's a very worn book - especially the Gospels. Half a page is torn out, but other than the very end of 2 Corinthians, it looks intact - just really, really used. I don't know much about my great-grandfather's service - I'll have to ask Gram. Truth be told, I didn't know he served during the "Great War." The black NT was a Chri...

So, a pastor friend has a dilemna that he shares with me (and with a few other pastors around the table). He goes to visit a couple from his church. They are both retired, strong church members, good attenders and givers, devout, all of that. But he's been wondering something: they have different last names. She has been introduced to the pastor as, "this is my wife..." so he's thinking maybe, long before it was in fashion, she retained her maiden name when they married. No, they aren't "really" married. But it's not that they don't love each other, in fact they WANT to be married. They are totally committed to each other, and have been for several years. The thing is, if they get married, somehow they lose about a third of their income. They can't afford to get married. So, my friend asks, what do you do? Do you insist they get married? Do you give them a blessing on their "marriage in the eyes of God?" Do you tell them they're...

I was wondering this morning why guys read in the bathroom. I know that some women read in the bathroom and some men don't read there, but most every guy I know reads "in the can" as one guy puts it. Nope, I don't know why. But I remember that my introduction to Kafka and Freud and a whole world of literature was opened up to me in the bathroom at my parent's house when I was a kid because my dad would leave his books lying around and I'd pick them up and try to figure out why a guy wakes up as a cockroach...pretty heady stuff for a ten year old. Truth is I don't remember a lot of those books - my dad read philosophy, psychology, and a lot of "informational" stuff - but I remember the plight of poor Gregor Samsa who could no longer communicate with those around him and died a neglected and starved...um...bug... Stories are powerful. I didn't understand what Kafka was getting at when I was ten (not sure I get all of it today - I just read ther...