The founding of the United States of America is in the future, not in the past.

America is pursuit.

And pursuit, by nature, is about the future. It is about what could be.

The Founder and Framers knew this. They drew up a crude blueprint and a rough sketch. They admitted that what they designed was imperfect. Incomplete. Unfinished.

But they were OK with this for two reasons.

First, they wanted to give the generations that followed the best chance to keep up the pursuit.

The pursuit of what?

An idea.

Liberty and justice for all.

The Founders and Framers knew that those who came before them and that their own generation failed to live up to that idea. They knew that it would be up to future generations to find a way to live up to the American idea.

Second, the Founders and Framers were OK with leaving us an incomplete and imperfect blueprint because they feared that future...

A lot of my family and friends spent the last three months asking: “How can we get back to church?”

But I found myself asking: “Should we go back to church?”

What I mean is: Should we go back to “doing church” the way we did it before COVID?

Is COVID a once-in-a-lifetime chance for the church of Christ to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles…and run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1)?

Is COVID giving the church of Christ “new wineskins” in which to make “new wine”?

Is going back to church the way it was before COVID the best that the Christ has in mind for the church? Or, after months of freedom from the status quo, are we able, ready, and willing to see what the Christ would do with us now?

I believe the church of Christ is an answer to the Christ’s own prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an email to a friend of mine, who is black.

Over the years, he and I spent many hours talking about racism in America.

When Americans began to protest the latest case of police killing an unarmed black citizen–this time George Floyd–I felt things. Icky things. Troubling things. Things that made me feel discomfort deep down.

As brains do, mine tried to make sense of those feelings by turning them into questions.

And those questions landed in the email I wrote to my friend, who is black.

I was about to hit “send,” when another feeling came over me.

It started in my belly, but quickly spread all over my skin like little tremors.

I’d asked my friend all of these questions before.

In fact, I’d asked my friend all of these questions several times before.

And not only him, but most of my black friends over the years answered those same questions...

One out of 1,000 black men and boys in the United States will die at the hands (or knees) of the police.

Put another way: If you are a male with brown skin in this country, the police are 2.5 times more likely to kill you you than someone whose skin is white.

If you are a male with brown scale, police are far more likely to use deadly force against you even when you aren’t armed or threatening to do harm.

The police act on our behalf as employees of the people. They enforce the laws and uphold our values.

In doing so, police show us something about ourselves as a society. What they enforce and uphold–and how they enforce and uphold it–gives us a glimpse into the spirit of the citizenry. Police action and attitudes help us see whether We the People are afraid or secure, careless or compassionate, connected or disconnected, distracted or paying attention.

What I think our black...

When I was a boy, I had a thing for the Civil War.

When other boys were playing video games, I was reading and re-reading ‘The Civil War’ by Bruce Catton.

I knew that my family had deep roots in the South. I had a hunch that my family fought for the Confederacy. That hunch turned out to right. A few years ago, my parents found that my great great great grandfather, Sgt. Robert Irwin, served in the Confederate calvary. In battle, he suffered a wound that led to his capture and death in a Union prison camp.

I thought my grandparents, who were old enough to remember meeting Civil War veterans, would be proud of our Confederate heritage.

One day, I tried to talk to my granddaddy about the Civil War. Granddaddy was a blue collar railroad man, a member of the Church of Christ, and a U.S. Army veteran. He was a Southerner through and through. I thought he would be happy to talk about the...

The Gospel of Luke chapter 23 ends with a corpse in a grave.

The corpse, of course, is what is left of Jesus of Nazareth.

Chapter 24 starts with the rumor that, after three days in the grave, life came back into the corpse and Jesus came out of the grave alive.

Jesus’s friends did not believe the rumor. About these friends, the storyteller uses words like “perplexed,” “terrified,” and “amazed.”

Who can blame them? In Luke’s version of the story, nobody saw Jesus alive again. It all seemed like “an idle tale” (24:11), as it surely would to us.

Then, in 24:13, we get a story about two people the storyteller never brought up once in the first 23 chapters of his book. They’re on their way to a town that no storyteller ever named before in the entire Bible.

And it is to these strangers on their way to nowhere that Jesus–alive indeed!–appears.

“But their eyes were kept from...

Governors and presidents matter.

If we didn’t know that before, we know it now.

An important fact: Governors and presidents are employees. We hire them to do a job. If they do it well, we let them keep the job. If they don’t do it well, we fire them and hire someone else. It’s that simple.

The time will come to decide if the employees we chose to manage our affairs are doing their jobs well.

But, as the old saying goes: “Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream.” The employees we hired to lead us will have to do.

Governors and presidents matter; but there is a leader who matters more.

That leader is you.

Be careful to not waste your emotions, energy, and time on finding fault with other leaders. When you do that, you fail to be a leader yourself.

Your circle of family and friends and neighbors need you to lead now. They need you to give them help and hope. They need you...

It’s all sacred time, but how many of us really knew that before a couple of weeks ago?

The urge is to wish for these days of fear and loneliness and loss to be over.

But my mom always used to say: “Don’t wish your life away.”

These days–yes, even these days–are sacred time. For better or worse, they are part of your one and only life. They are a chapter in your life story. When they are gone, you will never get them back.

“The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the LORD!” (Book of Job 1:21)

To see with eyes of faith is always a choice that is always in your control.

These days are nonrenewable, rare, and sacred.

Will you choose to see it that way?

Will you choose to live that way?

Grace and peace.

Can you think of a time in your life when the shadow of death was breathing down your neck like this?

Can you think of a time in your life when death seemed to be closing like a crypt over the whole world?

I have good news.

The buds on our crabapple tree are as fat as kernels of corn about to pop.

The first lightning and thunder of spring came last night with a steady rain.

Spears of green are thrusting through dead, grey leaves on the ground.

Each morning, a few more birds chatter and sing than the morning before.

The blue of the sky is changing from the pale, tight blue of winter to the richer, warmer blue of summer to come.

The air outside feels more electric as it flows into the lungs.

The chipmunk that was entombed under our deck for the winter…he is risen! He is risen indeed…and now busy doing whatever chipmunks do. I can see him right now as I type this.

Look and...

All of us are now finding out what it feels like to suffer a plague.

I don’t want to get into why. That wouldn’t do you any good here.

But I think you will agree with me on the what: COVID-19 is a plague on the human race.

The other day, a Bible verse came to mind: Gospel of Luke 22:31. Jesus said to his best friend, Simon Peter: “Simon, Simon! Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Are we not being sifted like wheat?

A plague has a way of showing the truth about us. It shows the stuff in our souls. A plague will show a coward to be a coward, a fool to be a fool, a selfish person to be a selfish person. It shows that someone who claims to be somebody is actually nobody at all.

A plague also shows us the nobodies who are actually somebodies.

In the Bible...