I wish I could slow this week down. Easter Sunday will be here soon enough, but you and I need Good Friday first. The chronic suffering all around us reveals it’s true. Sunday proclaims the hope of resurrection, but when we rush past Jesus’ crucifixion, our hope becomes too small to carry the real weight of the world in which you and I live. Good Friday, entering into the crucifixion, sharing in...
In C.S. Lewis’ book That Hideous Strength, one of the arch-villains is a decapitated head. Men fear and bow before “the Head” as they would a god. Pretty grizzly stuff. We live in an age where mankind exalts our own heads. Ask people what separates us from the animals (or “other animals”), and many will say it’s our intelligence. Ask a political leader of either major party how they’re going to...
He wouldn’t stop punching me in the arm. Hard. Again and again and again. I was 9 and to this day I remember the details. It was recess and I was outside the classroom on the blacktop underneath the basketball hoop. I was wearing my favorite winter coat, a hand-me-down, dark blue Dallas Cowboys letterman-style jacket with metal snaps and greyish silver sleeves. There were kids running and playing...
When I was 22, I remember walking alone across my college campus late at night, ashamed and angry. I looked up at the stars and prayed out loud, “God, I know you love me, and I love you. I also know you hate what I’m doing and I hate it too. So why won’t you change me!?” I’d been viewing pornography again, and sexual sin in my life was something I both hated and loved. I’d read books, tried...
Comedian Jim Gaffigan describes what it’s like to have four children: “Imagine you’re drowning…and then someone hands you a baby.” When my wife and I first heard this, we had just had our fourth and both of us almost jumped out of our seats, exclaiming “Yes! That’s exactly how it feels!” We had already been giving so much, working so hard to keep our heads above water. How could we take care of...
You should see the way I look at a menu. It’s ridiculous. I peruse the whole thing, narrow down my options, then narrow those down again, then go back and forth weighing the remaining options. I think about calories, calculate cost, try to predict how I’ll feel when I’m done, and consider how likely I am to find each dish again anytime soon. Sheesh, you’d think I was selecting someone to raise my...