by David Anderson
(We’ll get to Gobbler’s Knob in a moment.) Today—February 2nd—is a big turning point. It’s a great cross-quarter day, midway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. In ancient, agricultural societies it was regarded as the beginning of spring—the time for first turning the soil in preparation for March planting. There were prayers and […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Change, Nature/Creation, Surrender
This morning before Centering Prayer, Pam and I read from The Gospel of Thomas, a book of the sayings of Jesus discovered in 1945 in a small desert cave near Nag Hammadi, Egypt. Some sound word-for-word like other sayings in the canonical Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Some sound totally different, and some sound, […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Change, Faith/Trust, Family, Forgiveness, Letting Go
“No! I told him I wasn’t coming!” The woman answering her cell phone was talking way loud. I was five rows back on the train and the noise disrupted my conversation with Pam. “I don’t care—I’m not going!” Now the whole car was awkwardly silent, forcibly listening. A young man across the aisle from the […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Change, Fear, Freedom
Tonight the crowds will gather in Iowa to begin choosing the most important, the most powerful man in the world (we Americans are just shoo-ins for hubris, aren’t we?). The media will blitz us with more information, more “stories” than we really need or care about. Let’s remember that we are in a season that […]
by David Anderson 10 Comments Filed Under: Change, Faith/Trust
The day after. It so depends upon the day before. The wedding was bliss. My daughter Sharon was beautiful, smiling radiantly throughout the ceremony, and my new son Anthony was strikingly handsome in his navy suit and light blue tie. The bridesmaids and the groomsmen were all in a row, childhood friends and college buds […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Change, Family, Happiness, Letting Go
This is the season of preparation. Advent. We hear the notes of hope and expectation, but we also hear the note of repentance. John the Baptist is the wild prophetic figure who storms our lovely party of positives (as in, “Let’s keep it upbeat and positive”), with his classic one-line sermon. “Repent and believe the […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Change, Now/ the Present, Seeing, Surrender
Dear Janet, Good to get your email, though of course I’m sorry that this is a rough time for you. Having to cut off a relationship that held such promise but that ended up being destructive—that’s hard to do. People like Craig are hard to cut off, right? They’re so charming. They promise so much, […]
by David Anderson Leave a Comment Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Change, Faithfulness, Happiness, Love
Yesterday my friend Vicki related a remarkable tale. She was preaching the first Sunday of Advent, and the gospel call was “stay awake!” That call rings out because, well—we all tend to be asleep. Living in our sleep, walking in our sleep, working in our sleep, eating and drinking in our sleep. Vicki told of […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Change, Now/ the Present, Seeing