by David Anderson
I was asked to speak to a group this week on New Year’s Resolutions, and I decided instead to speak on new priorities. I don’t care much for resolutions, since they are mostly attempts to arm-wrestle small problems into submission without having to look plainly at one’s life. As soon as I focused on priorities […]
by David Anderson 3 Comments Filed Under: Change, Choice, Daily Practice, Happiness, Now/ the Present, Reality--trusting it, Seeing, Vocation/ Calling
The human being is capable of great idealism . . . and great delusion, as these resolutions humorously attest. Resolution #1 2010: I will try to be a better husband to Marge. 2011: I will not leave Marge. 2012: I will try for a reconciliation with Marge. 2013: I will try to be a better […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Change, Daily Practice, Happiness
I lit a fire in the hearth this morning and turned on the lights of the bare Christmas tree. It was six a.m., cold outside with a grey morning light. Nine days before Christmas Eve. Twenty little children have been killed in their classrooms, festooned with holiday decorations and happily cluttered with Christmas crafts. I […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Change, Community, Faith in Action, Forgiveness, Grace, Healing, Mercy, Repentance
It happens every year. We get off to such a beautiful start in Advent, and then he shows up. This season of hope and expectation opens with the lighting of the first purple candle and a glorious reading from Isaiah. Then comes the second Sunday of Advent, and he makes his annual appearance, the man […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Change, Faith in Action, Forgiveness, Repentance, Waiting
I live on a road with limited possibility. If you take the turn after crossing Ring’sEndBridge, you’ll be led to a few other streets and lanes, but otherwise it’s a beautiful circle that leads you down one side of a peninsula to Long Island Sound and back out the other. The name says it all, […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Change, Choice, Faith in Action, Grace
Ninety in ninety. That’s what my friend—I’ll call him Gary—had just accomplished a week earlier. Ninety AA meetings in ninety days. We sat in a coffee shop last night and I heard his story. There are a thousand ways to be a drunk, but one outcome. You can’t stop drinking even though it’s killing you […]
by David Anderson 12 Comments Filed Under: Change, Daily Practice, Forgiveness, Healing, Prayer/Meditation, Surrender
In some ways, I had a traditional ‘old South’ upbringing, meaning that I spent some time in a military school, and acquired an inoculum of the military ethic that is still with me today: honor, duty, loyalty. -E. O. Wilson I ran across those words this week and stopped. Inoculum is the substance used […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Change, Faith in Action
Ted Ryan, a friend of mine, told me about an experience that goes under the category of “the things a child can imagine.” He was giving his four year-old son breakfast before he went off to work, but the boy was just sitting there. He wasn’t touching his cereal. So Ted says to his son, […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Change, Character, Choice, Daily Practice, Faithfulness, Prayer/Meditation, Uncategorized