I saw spring for the first time this year. I don’t mean that I somehow wasn’t on earth March-June every year of my life until now. I mean that I never saw a real spring before. If you grew up in a normal place that experienced four seasons a year, you may ask if fake springs are a thing. They are. Perhaps ‘abnormal’ is a better word. I lived most of my life in a town 8,000 feet above sea-level. Not much grows up yonder besides pine trees and sagebrush, but it sure does snow. Springtime was when you got to say hello to the dirt and sagebrush again. You might get a few aspens budding, some flowers, but it wasn’t explosive in the least. Until last year, the only other place I’ve lived was a desert. No, all those palm trees are not native to Southern California. Nor...
Being Present to the Unnoticed God
I thought God would be more pushy. I was blessed to make it through the entire Bible this year (with many missed days and many catch-up days), and the contrast in God way of relating to his people struck me. We go from fire and thunder in Exodus to the whisper of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the first Christians. Perhaps it was more than a whisper — in Acts there are healings and miracles, rooms shaken with the wind of the Holy Spirit, people clearly moved by the will of God. Before that was the dynamic preaching and incredible healings of Christ, leading to his death with earthquakes and darkened sun and the greatest miracle of the Resurrection. But before that? Nazareth. I’m fascinated by Nazareth. Thirty years of Jesus’s life are practically unmentioned in Scripture, beyond a few events like the Flight to Egypt and...
Peace Through Humility
In the middle of absolute overwhelm, the invitation to peace is the strongest. I love how what we often call ‘cliche’ lessons in Christianity have the power to strike us anew at times. It’s almost like these truths are objects thrown into water that sink very, very slowly, sometimes without us noticing. They hit deeper parts of ourselves until coming to rest at the bottom of our hearts when we finally understand them to the fullest capacity possible in this life. A couple nights ago I was flipping through my Magnificat and stumbled across Matthew 6:25-34. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life… Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air…are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cube to his span of...
The Victory That Has Overcome the World
Easter this year was hard. You may have seen the email I sent out several weeks ago before Holy Week, in which I was feeling pretty hopeful. That hope didn’t necessarily die for me. I felt like I was able to mentally and spiritually follow Jesus’ journey to the Cross and the Resurrection as well as I could from home. On Saturday night, right before Easter, there was a moment when I felt utterly crushed about the situation the virus has created in the world. The next day was Easter Sunday, undoubtedly the most joyful day of the year for Christians, and the world was in darkness. As much as I wished it, part of me knew that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning and hear that the virus was gone, everyone was cured, and all the churches were opening. I thought that something was wrong about that....