I’m at an age when some people start to dread their birthdays. They may even lament out loud that they can’t believe they’re 46! Ugh! 46!

And I think to myself: “Well, at least you didn’t stop at 45!”

I stopped dreading birthdays on July 4, 1999.

That was the day I found that Randall Parks, one of my college friends, drowned while on a family vacation.

He and I rode around town in his pickup truck the night before we graduated from Harding University. We talked about our plans for life. He was off to graduate school on a full ride scholarship, a big step toward his goal of one day becoming an English professor at Harding.

Randall was gone just six weeks after that night. He was only 21.

I’ve thought about him on every birthday since he died.

I think about him every time I hear someone complain about their own birthday: Oh, you don’t like turning 46? Would you rather have...

Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash

What happened to the shepherds when the camera stopped rolling?

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see–I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go...

“When can we get back to normal?”

Asking a question like that is as human as human can be.

When we come out of the womb, our brains run on a default program that always looks for the easy way.

This is good. Our species made it this long because our brains work behind the scenes to figure out what is “normal” and to keep us there. That way, our bodies save energy. We stay safe in places that we know or at least know well enough that we can guess the best thing to do in them.

This is why we always want to snap back to “normal,” most of all in times when nothing feels normal.

Along with a brain, however, each one of us is born with an imagination. Something within us that strives to break out of “normal” to explore the wilds and maybe even make a new and better “normal”.

This is the divine spark, the great power that comes with great responsibility, the Holy Spirit of God.

...

Photo by Dan Kiefer on Unsplash

I wonder if, over the years, many Christians here in America mistook Christmas wishes for Advent hope.

When I was a kid, I looked forward to September for three big reasons: The Christmas catalogs from JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, and Sears came in the mail. As soon as I saw one of those catalogs on the kitchen table, I tore it open like a starving man tearing into a bag of bread. Within minutes, I found and circled the toys I wanted for Christmas.

Once the Christmas catalogs came, I studied them daily as if they were holy books. As soon as I came in the door from school, I found the Christmas catalogs and spent hours staring at the toys. Dreaming. Longing. Wishing.

It got so bad that Mom started hiding the Christmas catalogs when they came each September. She didn’t us look at them until after Thanksgiving.

What I remember about looking at those...

Photo by Joel Bengs on Unsplash

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. John A. Shedd (1859-1928)

How I wish to be safe in the harbor now.

How I wish to harbor myself and the people I love from wave after wave after wave of building collapses, climate change, high grocery prices, the nonstop lying of politicians and pundits (and the violence of their followers), school shootings, social media shit storms, tornadoes, viruses, and wildfires.

How I wish to harbor myself where I don’t have to make decisions of great and lasting consequences. Decisions that affect my family. Decisions that affect my neighbors. Decisions that affect the people who work for me. Decisions I might get wrong. Decisions that make me prone to the anger, criticism, and resentment of the very people for whom I’m trying to care.

Decisions that make me prone to the harm and suffering...

Photo by Brian Suh on Unsplash

I love driving through the flat, wide-open farm country of northwestern Ohio.

From Interstate 75, I can see for miles in every direction.

I enjoy the view on a clear day under a blue sky, when I feel like I’m smooth sailing across an ocean of soybean fields.

But I like it even more at night. It gets so dark and empty in every direction (including up), it feels like driving on the other side of the moon.

Every holiday season, we drive through that black void when we come home to Michigan from visiting family in Tennessee.

In that dark, freezing, infinite emptiness, I find one of my favorite sights in life and that sight fills me with one of my favorite feelings.

Yes, in that dark, freezing, infinite emptiness, I always spot a house far off in the distance, miles from the interstate. I can’t see the house, but I can see its Christmas lights. Each...

Photo by Napendra Singh on Unsplash

I’m writing this on the morning of GivingTuesday 2021.

If you don’t know about GivingTuesday, this must be your first day on the internet or with an email inbox.

A few years ago, only a few nonprofit fundraisers like me knew much about GivingTuesday. Now, my inbox has been filling up for days with GivingTuesday fundraising appeals from DOZENS of nonprofits that have me on their mailing list.

I’m not saying those nonprofits are doing anything wrong.

In fact, annual donations on GivingTuesday go up every year. They now add up to billions of dollars in gifts to hundreds of thousands of charities and nonprofit organizations around the world.

I say that if the wave is growing, nonprofit leaders might as well ride it.

But this post is not for the people who ask for money; it’s for the people who give money on GivingTuesday and any other day...

Photo by Jason Tuinstra on Unsplash

When the Christ said that the church of Christ is the “light of the world” and the “salt of the Earth,” I take it to mean that we are the gentle, kind, loving conscience of humanity.

For example, when humanity gobbles up consumerism at all costs, we show and tell a better way with grace and humility. When humanity takes it for granted that he is most blessed who can buy as much as he wants, the church of Christ quietly acts on the belief that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts of the Apostles 20:35).

The biblical pattern is that the church of Christ is the best “light” and “salt” when it is in the minority, when it is not in power.

We need to remember that the “light” of which the Christ spoke was a flicker in vast darkness. “Salt” is just a particle on whatever food it preserves.

Over the years–at least the years in my...

Photo by Rumman Amin on Unsplash

Marketing works best when it gets us to think about what we lack.

Marketing gets us to think about what we lack now and quickly imagine how a good or service will make our wishes come true later. Giving thanks becomes more like wishful thinking about the future. “Thanks in advance.”

Marketing may be the maker of the default setting in the American mind.

When we are very young–so young that we may not even know our ABC’S–we learn how to learn what we do not have. We learn how to imagine a future when we get what we do not have here and now.

This is how I gave thanks when I was young.

I thanked God for a big, long future in which I expected to get everything that I dreamed would make me happy and whole.

The problem now is that I am no longer young.

How do I give thanks now when the future is getting smaller and smaller?

Some of the people I...

Photo by sheri silver on Unsplash

If I make a big bad choice after lunch, I can often link it to a small not-so-bad choice I made around breakfast.

For example, let’s say I say something snippy to my wife as we’re getting ready for the day. I feel bad about it, which often means I feel bad about myself. The temptation comes over me to think of the day itself as bad or to think of myself as a bad person.

Once I start thinking about the day or my self as bad, I will find it hard to not act on those thoughts for the rest of the day.

So, for example, I may choose to go through the McDonald’s drive-thru at lunch instead of eating the healthy leftovers at home. And why not? The day is bad. I am bad. Bad people make bad choices on bad days. Why should anyone expect anything else?

This is what counselors and therapists call “all-or-nothing thinking.”

The day is either all bad or all...