I wish someone told me when I was young that glory is drudgery. Now in my forties, I’m finally learning to love that lesson.

Note: I didn’t say that you get to glory through drudgery.

I said “glory is drudgery.”

If you can’t find the gleam, lean into the task, and thank God for every moment of your life, you will miss out on the glorious life you already have.

And it is a glorious life, is it not?

When was the last time you took a moment to think about what a miracle it is to even be alive? Then add all the experiences of your long life and the opportunities that your life gives you today. Even if you are old, sick, or weak, think of all that your body and mind and senses can still do today. Do for yourself, or, more important, do for others.

Life has its moments when the bright lights out there will shine on you.

Those moments are rare. Those lights are always looking for...

The Good News–what Christians like me call “The Gospel”–is not that Jesus died.

No, that is the bad news.

Who would say it is good news to see their Hero die for crimes he didn’t commit?

Who would say it is good news to see their Hope hang hopeless on a stake in the ground?

No, the death of Jesus is not good news. It is bad news.

No, not even that.

It’s not news at all.

It’s what we expect.

We’re not blind. We read the headlines. We scan social media.

We’re old enough to know: This is the world in which we live.

This is what the world does to our heroes and our hopes.

And, more sadly, this seems to be what our heroes and our hopes always to do us in the end.

The world we know all too well killed the Hero, killed the Hope.

It would be bad news if it was news at all.

But then comes the morning of the third day after the world did what the world always does.

The news...

The state of the union is what you make it. It is what you want it to be.

Your union with the people who live in this country and share this planet with you is your choice.

If you don’t have this kind of power in you, how could God make love for foreigners and strangers the “must do” for people who wanted to claim him as their God? See Deuteronomy 10.14-22.

If you don’t have this kind of power in you, how could Jesus Christ make love for enemies the “must do” for people who want to be his apprentices and students? See Gospel of Matthew 5.43-48.

And it’s not the kind of love that stirs up some fleeting feeling while you sit in a prayer group at church.

No, the kind of love that God ordered up for enemies, foreigners, and strangers is active love, proactive love. It’s the kind of love that goes looking for an enemy to embrace. It’s the kind of love that goes looking for a...

Believing that Jesus is the Christ and trying to live the way he lives means something in America now.

First, it means Jesus is Lord. That’s an ancient saying. Roman citizens and subjects said it about Caesar long before Jesus was on the scene. Back in those days, the “lord” was the person who protected and provided for the people. They gave him credit when they were doing well and feeling safe.

The first Christians got into trouble because they stopped saying “Caesar is lord” and started saying “Jesus is Lord!” Even though they got into trouble, they kept saying it anyway. They believed that, since Jesus was a greater protector and provider than Caesar, that Jesus alone deserved the title of “Lord.” They believed that only Jesus deserved their pledge of allegiance.

If we are believers that Jesus is Lord–the only protector and provider we need–then we have a different relationship...

Read Gospel of John 13:1-17; 15:9-17

We go through life asking: “Is love real? And if it is real, is it for me? What do I have to do to get it and to keep it and not lose it?”

The Christ knows we’re asking this. He says: “Love puts its life on hold for you. Love puts its life on the line for you. Love is willing to die if it means you get to live. Love chooses you before you choose it—and keeps on choosing you even when you choose something else instead. Love knows you even if you don’t know it back. Love changes your diaper, cleans up your puke, and gets up with you in the middle of the night. Love holds you, kisses you, rocks you, and sings to you (even when Love has a bad head cold). When you’re little, Love carries you around all day in its arms and, when you get big, keeps carrying you around all day in its heart. Love chauffeurs, cleans, and cooks and never takes a break. Love is...

Who doesn’t love a good mystery?

The fun comes from trying to figure out how the story ends.

When I was a kid, our family used to make one or two trips to Tennessee every year. Mom always brought books to read aloud on the long drive from northern Ohio. As my sisters and I got older, Mom started bringing mystery books on those trips. We became a family of detectives, working together to solve the mysteries Mom read aloud to us.

One series of mystery stories for kids–I don’t recall the title–was our favorite. The author ended each short story without solving the mystery for us. It was up to our family to figure it out on our own. After we talked it over, we could turn to a page in the back of the book to find out if we solved the mystery.

Those are some of my favorite memories now: Dad, Mom, my sisters, and I working together solving mysteries as we rolled down I-71 in our old...

Your body heals itself.

Your body heals itself!

Your body heals itself with no direction and remarkably little conscious effort from you.

The sun rises every morning.

The sun rises every morning!

The sun rises every morning and it doesn’t take an act of Congress or a NASA mission to make it happen.

Spring comes around every year.

Spring comes around every year!

Winter kills everything, but we don’t worry because we know that spring comes around every year.

And with spring comes life anew.

We believe the miracle of bodies that heal themselves, the sun rising every morning, and spring bringing the world back to life after the dead of winter.

So is it a stretch to believe that the miracle-working power in bodies, sun, and spring could also raise a Man from the dead?

And if that miracle-working power raised a Man from the dead…could it also not raise you and me from the...

“You know the saying: ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ Well, I tell you to love your enemies and pray for your opponents. This proves that you’ve got God’s DNA in you. God makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. What makes you so special if you love those who love you? Any old lowlife knows how to do that. And if you care only for your family and friends–people who are like you–don’t even ‘moral degenerates’ do that? If you want to claim God as your Father and you know that he loves his enemies, doesn’t it follow that you should love your enemies, too?”–Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew 5.44-48 (paraphrase mine).

The blackbelt of Christianity is the love of enemies.

When Jesus Christ uses the word “love,” he’s not talking about prayers and well wishes from a safe distance. He’s talking about skin meeting skin. He’s...

What is the Union?

Union is not agreement; it is empathy.

Union is not unison; it is harmony.

Union is not monochrome; it is mosaic.

Union is not an argument; it is a conversation.

Union is not lecturing; it is listening.

Union is not an answer; it is a question.

Union is not winning; it is simply playing.

Union is not seeking war; it is making peace.

Union is not a religion; it is a faith.

Union is not either/or; it is both/and.

Union is not about being right; it is about being conscientious.

Union is not closed; it is open.

Union is not the few with authority; it is the many with agency.

Union is not a location; it is a direction.

Union is not the past; it is in the future.

Union is not an established fact; it is an unfolding story.

Union is not perfect; it is striving to be more perfect.

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though...

What does it look like to be an apprentice of Jesus Christ in America? What does it look like to be a community of Jesus Christ apprentices in America?

Since Jesus Christ didn’t live in America, I look for Americans who live or lived like Jesus Christ.

History seems a good place to start. Yet in the American pantheon, we find mostly men of war.

The life and teaching of Jesus Christ is out of place among such men. The one who taught love for enemies, mercy for those who don’t deserve it, and peacemaking as the DNA of God’s children seems out of place among our American heroes.

And yet there is one man in the American pantheon who put the teaching of Jesus Christ into public practice. There is one man in the American pantheon whose “beloved community” resembles the kingdom of heaven.

That man is Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In Dr. King’s time, the men who ruled America told us...