Category: Uncategorized

Smith Magazine: Home of the Six-Word Memoir is brilliant. (http://bit.ly/imKDsX).

Smith challenges people to creatively sum up their life story in six words and then share it with their online community. The results are often profound, provocative, or simply very funny.

Here are some examples:

“Decade of diapers: didn’t change jewelry.”
“middle class: above poverty. below dreams.
“Rollercoaster life means lots of vomit.”
“Couldn’t find needle. Burned down haystack.”

Here’s why everyone should write a six-word memoir.

The exercise will bring you into conversation with your soul about the arc and meaning of your life story. In addition, if you share your six-word memoir with [...] Continue Reading →

This morning I woke up and asked God the question, “What really matters today?”

Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Today.

God doesn’t like to be rushed so I let the question brew. The answer came while I was in the shower.

Be compassionate.

My field of vision is embarrassingly narrow. Much of the time it is consumed by the dramas that make up my life. In the morass of my self-interest I forget Plato’s adage: “Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Let’s not kid ourselves. From the barista at Starbucks to your closest friend, everyone is hanging on for [...] Continue Reading →

I spent the last two days with New Testament scholar NT Wright, who spoke for the Conversations on Faith and Courage Series I curate at Christ Church in Greenwich, CT.

Tom did a masterful job of enlarging our understanding of the gospels and casting an inspiring vision of our place in the story of God.

What separates Tom from the many theologians I have heard in the past is not his incredible grasp of the Bible, or his ability to lay out dense theological material in an accessible way, though he possess these gifts in spades.

What is most unusual and admirable about [...] Continue Reading →

My alarm clock randomly selected the Martha and the Vandellas song Dancing in the Streets to wake me at 5:00am this morning. My first two thoughts of the day were that the sound of the snare drum on that song is supernaturally amazing, and secondly, the Wild Goose Festival is only 41 days away!

I was into my second cup of coffee before I figured out why these two seemingly unrelated thoughts came one right after the other.

My soul is crying out for a little dancing in the streets.

Thomas Merton opened his 1967 Advent-Christmas letter with the words, “The days [...] Continue Reading →

“I find that Holy Week is draining; no matter how many times I have lived through his crucifixion, my anxiety about his resurrection is undiminished–I am terrified that, this year, it won’t happen; that that year it didn’t. Anyone can be sentimental about the nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re not a believer.

“If you don’t believe in Easter,” Owen Meany said. “Don’t kid yourself—Don’t call yourself a Christian.”

John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

My friend Pete Rollins is [...] Continue Reading →