One thing healthy religion does is challenge us. I don’t mean the strident castigations of the street preacher or even the social justice rally-er. Great traditions excel at the soft challenge, the friendly nudge, issued predominantly through the mode of story....
Our culture insists in looking for things we can measure, signs of a life well lived through metrics like health, strength, and success, but maybe we, too, should start listening for new vital signs; beds surrounded by loved ones, legacies of kindness and generosity,...
The issue is not that people fear change so much as they fear the in-between. What is known is what is comfortable, even if it is not the healthiest of situations. Anything that brings uncertainty into our lives can be paralyzing. People are inclined to stay in the...
My own pain in life has taught me that the first step to healing is not a step away from the pain but a step toward it. When brokenness is, in fact, just as intimate a part of our being as our chosenness and our blessedness, we have to dare to overcome our fear and...
The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life in between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted; thence proceeds...
Wholeness is relational as well as individual. We cannot separate our own health from the health of those around us... When we appropriately love other peoples' bodies by insuring that they have adequate food, shelter, health care, communal support, and political...
Jesus calls his disciples, giving us authority to heal and sending us out. He doesn't show us how to reliably...make a blind man see, dry every tear, or even drive out all kinds of demons. But he shows us how to enter into a way of life in which the broken and sick...
There are three ingredients that must be present in making healthy changes. First, you have to love the people, genuinely be on their side. Second, what you propose has to make sense. Something totally “off the wall” and foreign to a given tradition is not likely to...
The only response that will bring health and wholeness in our lives is to say yes to the Father and then live it out. God will not force us into his will. If we resist and defy him, we will have our way. But he gives us every opportunity to open our heart and say yes...
In common English usage, “peace” means the avoidance or absence of conflict. It indicates the lack of something: war or lesser forms of overt violence. In Scripture, on the other hand, shalom indicates the active presence of multiple dynamics: well-being, harmony,...