Do you recall the first time you ever wrote a to-do list?

I began making goals and to-do lists early in high school. I recall filling one side of a sheet of notebook paper with goals and to-dos for each week. That habit is still with me (though in a different form) 26 years later.

I kept some of those lists from different periods of my life: College, early career, seminary, early marriage. Looking back at some of them now, I think: “I must have been crazy to believe I could get all of that stuff done!”

At one point during grad school, my weekly goals list was two and a half pages long! My daily to-do lists could fill an entire sheet of notebook paper. It’s no wonder I burned out and dropped out of seminary. When you spend an hour a day just writing out all of the things you have to do that day, you’re in for some therapy.

And, indeed, I ended up in therapy during seminary. Go...

Christianity links sin and death. For example, in his letter to the church in Rome, the apostle Paul writes: “For the wages of sin is death” (Ro6.23).

The classic Christian equation is that we human beings sin. A lot. From birth.

All sins are crimes against God. God is just. God is perfect. Therefore humanity owes God an impossible debt. To put the scales of justice back in balance and to restore the perfection of all things, God should damn us all to hell or at least execute us.

Because of his great love, however, God solves humanity’s problem. He pays the debt and rights the wrongs of humanity by taking all the death and punishment we are due. He does this in the form of his son, Jesus Christ, put to death on a cross.

This is the classic Christian equation as I understand it.

But I notice something else going on with sin. Something less of an equation or legal abstraction...

I used to have a script for life.

A script for the church I would attend and the religion I would practice.

A script for the woman I would marry and the family we would raise.

A script for the house we would own and town where we would live.

A script for the career I would build and a script for the professional accomplishments I would accumulate.

When it comes down to it, I had a script for the people in my life.

And I had a script for God, too.

One by one over the years, those scripts ended up in cardboard boxes out in the garage or on the bottoms of stacks of yellowed papers in drawers. I even burned some of them.

Because life is unscripted. Can never be scripted.

Especially life with God.

The Bible is full of stories about people who had plans for their lives until they encountered God. And when they encountered God, God always said something about like this to...

When I was a kid, “Just Because” was a good enough answer to the biggest questions in life.

Especially this big one: “Daddy, why do you love me?”

As a child, “Just Because” could be scientific fact and mysterious truth at the same time. And I was happy.

At some age (I don’t recall when), “Just Because” wasn’t good enough any more. School and work likely had something to do with it. “Just Because” doesn’t cut it in American management practice and the scientific method.

“Just Because” doesn’t work on a balance sheet, a resume, a term paper.

And yet…

Aren’t our souls are hungry and thirsty for more “Just Because”?

Don’t we long to go back to a time when love was “Just Because?”

A time when we did art and daydreaming and music and play and whatever “Just Because”?

A time when “Just Because” was enough because our hearts, our selves were enough.

I think the Gospel Story–the...

How should one feel on Memorial Day?

The ten-year old me would say: “Sad. And happy.”

And if you pressed the ten-year old me: “Sad because so many people died. Happy because we have freedom.”

That’s the ten-year old me. What about the me of today? What if you ask him how one should feel on Memorial Day?

“We should be ashamed of ourselves,” preaches the 40-year old me. “Look at what we’ve made of Memorial Day. Eating and getting drunk and shopping. My God! People died! And we’re tailgating on their graves. For shame!”

I’ve felt this way–guilty–for a few years now on Memorial Day.

It’s not just Memorial Day.

I feel guilty when I take a “mental health day.” Or when I’m not getting much work done at the office so I head to the coffee shop instead. Or when I take a long walk in the park around 2 p.m. on a Thursday. Or when I come to work late or leave work early to take my son for a...

Sometime in the last year, I started keeping a journal every day.

The first thing I do every morning is to make a big cup of coffee in my Bialetti. As soon as I put it on the stovetop, I start writing down things for which I’m thankful. I try to write as many as I can before the coffee boils.

After months of this, I noticed that some things show up again and again.

I noticed because I got bored writing them.

For example: The most frequent blessing to appear in these daily gratitude lists: Time with my three-year old. On most days, it shows up multiple times in the list as I recall things he did or said or experiences we shared.

Another example: Listening to the birds sing and watching the dawn through our big picture window while sipping hot coffee and writing in my journal.

Yet another example: An especially good meal the day before. Time out here: When I was a kid, I was...

I don’t know about “spiritual moments.”

“Spiritual” is open to a broad range of definitions.

Thankful moments are more common and familiar to me.

These are moments when the gratitude in my heart bubbles up like an artesian spring. Sometimes it comes on so strong I get that tension in my shoulders and chest that normally comes just before crying.

I’m a believer in a God who is personal and present and wildly interested.

However, you don’t have to believe in God to know that feeling of gratitude that sometimes comes over you like a warm wave. Being thankful doesn’t require you to know the person or thing you’re thanking.

In what moments do you fall in thankfulness like you fall in love?

For me (this is not an exhaustive list by any means):

It’s any moment my three-year old son climbs into my lap, gives me a hug and a kiss, laughs, smiles, or talks. In short, anything he does is...

Just now, I said to my three-year old: “I’m your father.”

He said: “No you’re not. You’re my daddy.”

And I said (and thought): “You’re right. I’m your daddy. I’d rather be your daddy than your father anyway.”

I wonder if that’s what God has been trying to get across to us this whole time.

We use up the present on the past and future, don’t we?

We waste a perfectly pristine spring Sunday morning dreaming and fantasizing, regretting, and wishing.

The birds are singing, the dawn is breaking, and a hot cup of fresh coffee is steaming. Spring is becoming summer. We’re starting our day in a home with people who are constant in our lives. We’re watching our children grow into interesting people.

How much of it do we notice? How much of it do we savor?

Are we consuming our present–missing most of it–in daydreaming the perfect future or worshipping perfect memories of an imperfect past?

Do we treat the present as some middle child who can’t live up to her older brother (the Past, whom we affectionately call Back When) or her younger sister (the Future, whom we affectionately call Someday When)?

Are we angry at God for being I AM? What kind of disappointing God hangs out...

Why does that guy have to fly his damn helicopter low over my house at 6 a.m.? Doesn’t he know my kid and wife are sleeping? He’s ignorant.

Why didn’t that woman use her turn signal? I could have gone, but I didn’t know she was going to turn. Doesn’t she know how her driving is affecting other people? Does she care? She’s ignorant.

Why are these people (who say they’re Christians) rallying to a presidential candidate who is a misogynist xenophobe talking trash and vowing violence? Don’t they know anything about Christianity? Do they even get the point of America? They’re ignorant.

Why doesn’t anyone fire that twit? He’s incompetent and lazy. Doesn’t he know how hard he makes it on everyone else around him? I’m trying to do him a favor and he’s crapping all over it. He’s ignorant. And while I’m at it, so are the people who keep a guy like that around.

She’s such a liar. I’d be her...