Finding Your Soul by David Anderson
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Failure and Success are Both Imposters
I had breakfast yesterday morning with a friend from seminary. She was telling me about a leadership conference that she had recently hosted. Pastors of thriving congregations had come to speak, but for her one stood out. It was a man we both knew and admired. “Gary told us about a failure,” she said. “All…
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Frantically Eating Chocolates
“The whole fall, back-to-school just hit me like a truck.” That’s the way a mother described the first days of September as we talked last night. Me too. It all comes on so fast. Summer seems to start gradually, as things wind slowly down. But it always ends with a bang. A gun goes off.…
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The Old Well
“God is an underground river,” Meister Eckhart said, “that no one can dam up or stop.” I love that image of God because it completely flips the dominant image of God “up there.” When we first imagine a deity, God is always “up,” always distant, the Sky God of nearly every ancient religion. Until, gradually,…
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Forgiving 911 Times
On this anniversary of 9/11 the papers are full of stories about fisticuffs over the memorial at ground zero. It’s NYC and Bloomberg versus NY and Cuomo, fighting over who gets to control the memorial, who has to pay for it (it costs $60 million a year to maintain). This is about all the little…
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The Eyes of Mark
When I walked into the grocery store, he was standing by the door. I’d never seen him before, but he was wearing a uniform and I knew he was an employee. I said an average hello, and he responded with a hello so happy it startled me. Then he handed me a shopping basket. I…
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The Mask that Changed His Face
In an age of doubt and—worse—of apathy and cynicism, we all struggle to “believe.” We can’t believe what we blindly accepted as a child; many passages from the Bible are either confounding or troubling; taken literally, the Creed is a bridge too far. Faith or spirituality was always presented as a matter of “belief”—what you…
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Love and Work
It’s Labor Day weekend, and most people won’t think a thing about labor. Work is just what we do to put bread on the table or maintain a lifestyle. Like everything else, we tend to do it mindlessly. But it would be hard to overemphasize the importance of our labor. Freud said, “Love and work…
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Sixty-Four Ounce Sodas I Shall Not Want
“WE DON’T NEED BUREAUCRATS TELLING US WHAT BERVERAGES TO BUY!” That’s the dyspeptic protest I’m seeing on posters and t-shirts, sparked by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to ban large sodas in the city. His anti-obesity crusade aims to make sixteen ounces the limit—at restaurants, delis, movie theatres, sports arenas, and food carts. This…
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Goodbye Routine
Routines, habits, daily rituals are important. Get up, make the coffee, feed the dog, get the paper, shower, leave for work. Habits are efficient. If you had to get up every morning and think, “Now, what should I do first?” you’d still be sitting on the edge of your bed at noon. The downside is,…