by David Anderson
Did you open the fridge this morning? She asks.No, I reply.Well, then it was sort of open all night.What!I put that pan of peaches on the bottom shelf, she says, because they’re about to go bad—and…But you can see [Here I demonstrate] the door doesn’t close.Yes, but [Here she elbows me out of the way] […]
by David Anderson 15 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Breathing, Choice, Daily Practice, Happiness, Letting Go, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation
I remember the day Pam got off the train, from her increasingly miserable daily commute into New York City, and said, “I am done with this.” We had two little girls and I wasn’t earning much in my first job out of seminary. She made more than I did. How were we going to survive? […]
by David Anderson 15 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Awareness, Change, Choice, Discernment, Grace, Happiness, Letting Go, Reality--trusting it, Surrender
“We love because God loved us first” (1 John 4:19). That truth is especially sublime when we hear it in Holy Week, when we watch with awe as someone embraces the whole world in love—and chooses to die rather than limiting or qualifying that love. If Jesus had recanted, if he had just admitted that, […]
by David Anderson 3 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Choice, Daily Practice, Family, Grace, Healing, Lent, Love, Surrender, Transformation
Palm Sunday—the Sunday of the Passion—is a good moment to stop and consider this question. When I tried to answer it, my first thoughts leapt to the heroic. What cross would I die on? What great cause could demand, as the hymn sings it, “my soul, my life, my all”? Once I recognized the ego […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Choice, Fear, Forgiveness, Grace, Lent, Letting Go, Reality--trusting it, Surrender, Transformation
Every year on the first Sunday in Lent we listen to the saga of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. It’s an epic story, and every great drama needs a hero with a backstory. In this case, the hero is still wet from his baptism, a moment of initiation where God’s naming and owning is explicit. […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Choice, Identity, Lent, Letting Go
Everybody talks about “letting go.” Then why don’t we? In October a delivery truck hit the stone wall at the entrance to our driveway, doing modest damage. For months I’ve been calling the company owner to respond to the repair estimate he requested. Every time I call, the receptionist says Ricky is out, but will […]
by David Anderson 10 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Choice, Daily Practice, Freedom, Happiness, Healing, Letting Go, Now/ the Present
Where is your life taking you? That’s the question I heard Parker Palmer asking. The Quaker wise man was being interviewed. “I had to ask myself,” he said, “where my life was taking me, rather than just where I was trying to take my life.” It’s important to try to take your life somewhere. Without […]
by David Anderson 11 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Choice, creativity, Faith/Trust, Freedom, Grace, Happiness, Letting Go, Surrender, Vocation/ Calling
Many of us who are still in good health have decided . . . that at some point we will not wish to cope with the diminishment of our lives, the narrowing choices, the prospect of both physical and intellectual decay. When that point comes, we’ll go out. Deciding just when should be the choice […]
by David Anderson 10 Comments Filed Under: Choice, Death/Dying, Faith/Trust, Fear, Letting Go, Now/ the Present, Suffering, Surrender, Uncategorized