People may call what happens at midlife "a crisis," but it's not. It's an unraveling--a time when you need a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you're "supposed to live."
03513 – Live the Life You Want to Live
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03086 – The Standard of “Biblical Manhood”
The church tends to hold up a standard of “biblical manhood” that simultaneously emasculates men (you are helpless to control your sexual urges) and beastifies them (you must RULE your marriage and family and keep them under control). Neither approach reflects...
02916 – Understood vs. Understanding
We're all so desperate to be understood, we forget to be understanding.
02660 – It’s Okay…
It's okay to grieve and hope at the same time.It's okay to exhale all of your loss and sadness and pain and feel an aching emptiness words cannot express.And it's okay, in the very next breath, to inhale joy and expectation and assurance with all the strength you...
02146 – The Beautiful Way of Jesus
So what are we inviting ourselves and others into? For those who’ve been out for a while, what are we inviting them back to? ...When we can step out of our institutional concerns, reconnecting with the essence of our faith, we remember the Way of life to which Jesus...
02092 – We Just Need a Witness to Our Pain
You know, what strikes me is how desperately we all need to know that we are seen and heard. We don't need our lives to be different, or easier; we just need someone to see the pain. To know what we've faced and overcome. To say: Yes. I see this. This is real. We...
01966 – So, What Will We Do Tonight?
[1987 - extemporaneous response to someone's public objection of her being allowed to preach] While we are in this place debating about who can or cannot stand behind a piece of wood, there's a world out there. And the cries of that world are growing louder. There's a...
01857 – Doubt Can Lead to Faith
Before doubt, I thought that faith was a matter of correct beliefs. My religious teachers taught me so: that if I didn’t hold the right beliefs, or at least say that I held them, I would be excommunicated from my community, and perhaps, after death, from God’s...
01414 – What the Planet Needs
The plain fact is that the planet does need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind.
01307 – Objecting to Violence
No doubt the objection may be raised that affirmation of nonviolence by the churches would be simplistic, that ethical judgments in the real world of the Powers are far too complex to adopt a fixed ethical stance. This objection, I must confess, was one of the main...