I'm not one to comply with cultural prompts for celebration or grief. I do, however, sometimes get inspired by current events. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day last week, reports of serious cruelty in my community, plus a podcast I've been listening to called Mother Country Radicals have piqued my curiosity about activism. What is it? How does it work? What are the potential risks and benefits? My current conclusion is that as a Christian I am without a doubt called to activism.

Buying a sports car and getting some botox? Running off to Paris for a week? Walking out of church and quitting your job on a whim? Did someone say midlife crisis? Physically, humans mature such that by the time they're twenty-four their brains and bodies are fully developed. But mentally, emotionally, and psychologically, we may take a lifetime. Or we may never arrive at fully functioning! As actual adolescents, some kids throw off old expectations and buck the system, runni

I sit in my office staring into the soul of another human being about a thousand hours a year. I have been doing this for almost twenty years. That's twenty thousand hours over the course of my career. And that doesn't count the time I spend with my friends and family and all the years I spent coaching and playing sports, all navigating the nuances of human relationships and interactions. I'm highly extroverted and intuitive. If there is one thing I feel is true about most hu

One of the most common New Year's resolutions I hear is to exercise more. Most people have fallen prey to the diet industry's proclamation that there is something wrong with their body and therefore they must punish it into submission, typically by restricting ever-changing food categories, purchasing and consuming odd over-priced concoctions and signing up for a marathon. I hear rephrasing like, "I just feel better if I excercise," and "I just need to lose a few pounds," but

The scene opens with a mother sitting on a chair, huddled by a bed in a dark bedroom, only one lamp lit. She holds the hand of a boy lain flat on the bed, neither moving save her lips in silent prayer. The only heartbeat is her own. She doesn't believe it. This can't be real. She believes the pain of reality would break her, so she denies it. How long will she stay here? How long will she demand the benevolent savior do her will ? How long will she rot with her boy? There are