A man is having an enjoyable boat ride on a river. It is dusk. The man looks up to see another boat coming down the river toward him, and his first thought is how nice it is that someone else is out enjoying the river and the beauty of a summer’s evening. Then he realizes […]
Freedom
My Night in Sing Sing
On Monday night I sat in the most exciting, powerful and inspirational circle I’ve experienced in years. I was conversing with convicted felons at Sing Sing prison—homicide, armed robbery, drug dealing. We sat in a classroom, maybe fifteen of us from the “outside” and ten inmates. We had come to learn more about a program […]
Narrow Your Options
Creativity is kin to spirituality. As a writer and a pastor, I am always intrigued by how the creative process—for any artist—tracks so closely the movement of the Spirit. The key to creativity, I find, also fits the lock and opens the door of the soul. And that key is: limits. Everything about our world […]
The Hardest Thing to Do
The hardest thing to do is to accept another person as they are. That truth resounded once more this week as I listened to a woman talk about a struggle with her sister. They were often at odds, she said, because their lives were so—blood—similar and yet so completely different. They had different career goals, […]
The Loving Acceptance of Limitation
Sunday afternoon found me visiting the “Senior Living” facility here in town. As these places go, Atria is the Brigadoon. Sunny, pleasant, watercolors dotting the walls. But even so, women (mostly women, of course) sit along the hallways with nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to see. I found my way to the […]
The Cat Who Sat on a Hot Stove Lid
I don’t know if it’s true, but someone once told me that domesticated birds can be trained to sit by an open window—and not fly away. You put their perch next to an open window, but you tie one foot to the perch, so that when the bird attempts to fly out the window, it […]