Dad said we were rich.

But by fifth grade, I knew the truth. We were poor.

Mom volunteered as a “room mother” for my classroom at school. She came in wearing clothes she found at Goodwill or made for herself at home. Other moms bought their clothes at the mall.

Other moms bought mall clothes for their kids, too. But my mom made me wear hand-me-downs from my cousin. I felt like Starsky & Hutch in a Miami Vice world.

In fact, my parents didn’t buy me anything. They made me buy my own stuff with my own money that I had to go earn. Every afternoon, I went on a “walk of shame,” taking newspapers door-to-door to make a few bucks. I tried to hide my face every time the cool kids rode by on their shiny new ten-speed bikes.

But the worst was our 1978 Chevy station wagon. It had more duct tape than chrome on it. Turning the steering wheel made a pulsing, shrieking sound like the love...

Before the pandemic, I went to two churches almost every week.

One church put a lot of energy, money, and time into “production values.”

I am sure that, in the other church, not one person in the pews even knows what “production values” means.

The first church recorded an album a few years ago.

Nobody is going to ask to record the second church any time soon!

The first church pays professionals to perform in worship.

At the second church, the least bad singer bravely volunteers to be the first to start singing until everyone else joins in.

Guess which church I miss the most.

I like good worship as much as the next Christian, but I love the people in the pews a hundred times more. What I’m learning from the pandemic is that I will take people over production values every time. The chitchat that happens just before and after worship means more to me than what happens between...

I’m not so much into “getting saved” anymore.

I can’t recall the last time I talked or thought about it.

This is big news. “Being saved” was all I could talk or think about back in 1987. I was 11 years old.

But how to “get saved,” “stay saved,” and “save others” was what all of us in the Church of Christ talked about back then. I may have been in kindergarten the first time I asked my mom if I was saved. I asked my parents that question again and again and again until I was 11 years old.

I had nightmares about Judgment Day. In one nightmare, I was in the backyard playing with toys as most 11-year old boys do. Suddenly, a loud trumpet blast shook the earth! Jesus appeared in the sky. I left the ground and floated up in the air to meet him. I watched my neighborhood drift away below as I rose higher and higher. I was horrified to see that I was the only going to meet Jesus. Everyone...

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...