What is the most important thing your parents did for you as a child?

February 10 was my parents’ 48th wedding anniversary. When I woke up that morning, I paid attention to the first thing that came to mind when I thought about their marriage. What was the first image to form in my memory when I thought about Dad and Mom together?

Here it is: Meetings.

My parents had meetings.

The defining image of my parents’ marriage is the memory of them sitting next to each to have a meeting at the dining room table.

Some of those meetings were about money (which was always tight). Some of them were about church and school activities, home projects, or vacations. Sometimes, Dad and Mom had meetings about marriage itself.

I want to be clear: I’m not talking about talking. I mean that when my parents called a meeting with each other, they had an agenda, a set place, and a set time. They...

“You should talk about whether it’s a good idea for you to get married.”

This is the bomb the counselor dropped on my fiancee, Tracy, and me when we were just a few weeks from our wedding.

To get married at the church where Tracy grew up, we had to agree to a course of pre-marital counseling. For a few weeks before our wedding, we met with a counselor to talk about how we got along as a couple.

After one session, the counselor told us he saw some signs of trouble for our future together. While Tracy and I both valued and wanted most of the same things in life, we handled conflict in very different ways. Our different ways of dealing with differences looked like red flags to the counselor.

After that session, Tracy and I went to a nearby park and just walked around. I agreed with the counselor that Tracy and I had real problems working through disagreements. I also agreed with him...

Back in my 20s, I decided to take up distance running.

I don’t know why. I ran cross country in junior high school and hated every minute of it. I didn’t try to run more than a mile again until college, when Army ROTC required me to run three miles.

I think that three-mile run is the reason I dropped out of Army ROTC.

Nevertheless, I decided to take up running again a few years later. I really don’t remember why. But, as I did with most things back then, I went all out. I bought the best shoes. I signed up for a bunch of 5k and 10k races. I even got the cross country coach at Rochester College to be my personal trainer.

Yes, I went all out on every part of running except one: Actually running.

The coach gave me a training program that I followed…sometimes.

I did run more than I ever had in my life, but I also hated it as much as I ever hated running in my life. Some days I ran...

We are in a pandemic of contempt.

I see it spreading everywhere (especially on social media).

Sometimes I see symptoms of it in myself.

The biggest symptom of contempt, I think, is how quickly I think I notice that others have contempt for me.

How dare they? I think.

But when I get honest in prayer, I see the truth: The contempt I know I feel for them is greater than the contempt I think they feel for me.

As a Christian, I am lost if I choose to have and hold contempt.

The Spirit of the Christ is not a spirit of contempt, but of grace.

I am no longer in the Way of the Christ when I find I am giving contempt a place to grow in me. I must confess my sin and turn 180 degrees.

I must turn away from contempt and back to grace.

Many of the people Jesus met on his way were contemptible people. They made choices that were indecent, immoral, and unhealthful. They were wrong...

One time long ago, I had a partner in magic.

Tim was my best friend from first grade until sixth grade. Together, we made childhood memories that dazzle and childhood stories that delight.

We looked like a pair that Hollywood would put together for comedy. I was shy, small, and weak. Tim was big, outgoing, and strong. But when it came to humor and imagination, we were equals. In the days before tablets and video games, we made our own worlds of fun and wonder.

We could play for hours. For days! I was at Tim’s house at least once a week. He was at mine just as often. In the summertime, I would spend the night at his house one day and he would spend the night at mine the very next day. The fusion of our creative energies made it unbearable to be apart.

We often stayed up all night. One time, we used my old tape recorder to make a “radio show”. Now that I’m a parent, I feel sorry...

Tomorrow, the United States of America inaugurates its 46th president.

This will be the 12th inauguration of my lifetime, but it will be nothing like the eleven that came before it.

Months ago, anyone with even a bit of realism in them could see that a traditional inauguration could not happen for public health reasons.

This inauguration, however, is the first and only one out of 46 that has not been a “peaceful transfer of power.”

It is to this generation’s shame that, not even in the years before, during, and after the Civil War, did citizens try, by force of violence, to stop the lawful and legitimate transfer of power.

This generation of Americans is forgetting something that is essential and vital to self-government: Losers are still winners.

The day we give up on that is the day the Republic dies.

In self-government, everyone eventually loses just as everyone...

No movement in American history more resembled the life and teachings of Jesus Christ than the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

No movement in American history, to achieve its aims, more closely followed the Way of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the most Christian of all Christian teachings is this one:

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect (Gospel of Matthew 5:43-48).

A Christian is someone who loves her enemies. And not from a distance. Not from...

Jesus wept (Gospel of John 11:35).

Of course he did.

He claimed “I AM” (Gospel of John 8:58).

His nickname meant “with us” (Gospel of Matthew 1:23).

Put it all together.

When those with whom he found himself were weeping, how could a man who went by the name “I am with you” not weep with them?

The meaning and purpose of Jesus’s name–the meaning and purpose of Jesus, the man, himself–is *here-*ness. *With-*ness.

We have Jesus all wrong if we imagine him passing through humanity like a warm knife through butter.

We have him wrong if we imagine him glowing with heavenly light, floating head and shoulders above the crowd, surrounded by a holy force field.

We have him wrong if we imagine him acting like a god, looking like a god.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of...

Conservatives are the new liberals.

Let me explain.

Growing up and coming of age in the public square, conservatives were my heroes and role models. I was happy to be one myself.

What did I understand conservatism to be?

Conservatism, as I thought of it, was about five things:

First, the belief that “all [human beings] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Human beings form governments to ensure that human beings in a society can enjoy these rights to the fullest without infringing on the rights of others. The purpose of government is not to give these rights to citizens, but to recognize these rights and to protect and uphold them.

Second, the belief in universal basic standards of justice, morality, and virtue. Human beings may have different deities and...

I tried so hard to talk myself out of liking or loving Tracy.

The biggest reason I tried so hard to not like her is that I didn’t imagine she would like me back. I wanted to save myself the heartbreak, so I tried to coax my heart away from her.

Someone like her would never like someone like me. Would she?

The second biggest reason I tried to not like Tracy is that I wasn’t her type and she wasn’t mine.

From an early age, I had a picture of the kind of girl I would marry and Tracy was not it.

Until I met Tracy, I expected to marry a woman who is a lot like me. Maybe she would be the daughter of a Christian missionary or pastor. I would meet her at a Bible study, church, or at Christian concert. On dates, we would cup mugs of tea in our hands, pray together and talk about God’s will for our lives. It would be easy for her to like me and for me to like her. We would always get...