by David Anderson
Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice of an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder lightning. —Karl Barth The gratitude Barth speaks of is not happiness, certainly not elation. Maybe we feel grateful when something turns out perfectly, or our hard work is rewarded with some kind […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Awe, Blessing, Daily Practice, Forgiveness, Grace, Gratitude, Happiness, Healing, Mercy, Salvation, Surrender, Transformation
What if a total stranger tells you he thinks you’re his second cousin? When my daughter Maggy decided to do genetic testing with 23andMe, she was hoping to learn more about her ancestry. What she didn’t expect was that submitting her saliva for testing would provide the missing link in another man’s search for his […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Family, Fear, Forgiveness, Healing
Cleaning out a basement closet today, I find, stuffed in a box of old sermons and random papers, a twenty-year-old photocopy of an obituary for Robert Foster Anderson. There’s a grainy picture of a man in a white cap. He looks like my Dad, but I never met him. The obit said he had a […]
by David Anderson 14 Comments Filed Under: Conflict, Family, Forgiveness, grief, Healing
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
Some years ago, the Dove soap company created a video. At the time, a woman sent me the link because it seemed a profound demonstration of self-judgment. The video shows a forensic sketch artist, asked to draw a series of women based solely on their descriptions. Seated at a drafting table with his back to […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Happiness, Identity, Lent, Letting Go, Seeing
I received this alert, and it’s the kind of warning that–in this Advent season–I am delighted to pass on. Symptoms of Inner Peace Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner peace and it is possible that people everywhere could come down […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Breathing, Daily Practice, Faith/Trust, Fear, Forgiveness, Happiness, Letting Go, Love, Now/ the Present, Patience, Surrender, Uncategorized
Pam and I spent the weekend with our parents: Pam with her mother and I with my father. Her father died only a year ago or so, and my mother is gone fifteen years now. Both our parents—vigorous in their old age—have suffered setbacks in the last six months. Pam’s mother is on hospice, […]
by David Anderson 13 Comments Filed Under: Conflict, Family, Forgiveness, Happiness, Healing, Letting Go, Love, Now/ the Present
“It is never too late to love.” That’s what a good friend told me this week. I was telling her of a kind of break-through: I had learned to love someone a little better, to forgive someone (and pardon myself as well). It felt good, but almost immediately I thought, “I wish I had come […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Death/Dying, Forgiveness, Happiness, Letting Go, Love, Mercy, Now/ the Present