by David Anderson
It was a small procedure, but even “minor” surgery requires general anesthesia, intubation, and signing a form that says if you die in there it’s not like they didn’t warn you. I walked into the OR in my johnny coat, an IV dripping in my arm, and there before me was a narrow operating table […]
by David Anderson 11 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Grace, Healing, Mercy, Now/ the Present, Suffering, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
Just a few days ago I got an $800 repair bill on our junker car (mice had made a nest in the air ducts and gotten caught in the blower fan, yuck). That was just after the expert stood in my front lawn and told me I needed a new septic system. Money is one […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Faith/Trust, Happiness, Letting Go, Now/ the Present, Reality--trusting it, Surrender, Transformation
On Saturdays our companions are musicians. “Think about it,” Steve Winwood sings, “there must be a higher love—Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above.” That’s the force we’ve been trying to fathom this week in “Stories of Transforming Love”—a power we can name only as a “Higher Love,” Steve Winwood’s 1986 hymn […]
by David Anderson 8 Comments Filed Under: Beauty, Grace, Lent, Love, Power, Transformation
was Jesus’ friend, from beginning to end. Like all the other women who were essential to Jesus’ ministry, Mary Magdalene was not counted as one of his disciples. Luke tells us that Jesus went about preaching, and “With him went the Twelve, as well as certain women who had been cured of evil spirits and […]
by David Anderson 11 Comments Filed Under: authority, Change, Conversion, Faith/Trust, Faithfulness, Grace, Gratitude, Healing, Lent, Love, Transformation
is a casualty of religious violence. You hardly know his name, but Malchus is the servant of the high priest, who comes along with Judas Iscariot and the Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus in the garden. He’s a bystander, really, until Peter, armed with a sword, decides he’s had enough of this non-violent resistance stuff. […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Conflict, Healing, Lent, Power, Surrender, Transformation
On Saturdays our companions are musicians. Bob Dylan was on a grueling world tour in 1978, performing 114 shows in Japan, Australia, North America and all over Europe. He was traveling with an 8-piece band and three back-up singers. A lot to manage. All told, he sang to two million people. In the middle of […]
by David Anderson 8 Comments Filed Under: Conversion, Lent, Salvation, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
is the queen of surrender. When the angel comes to her with the news, both impossible and outrageous, she says simply, “Let it be.” Let what is about to happen, happen. This isn’t passivity or indifference. It isn’t fatalistic. Not, “Well, it’s bound to happen, so there’s no sense fighting it.” It’s curious, wanting to […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Faith/Trust, Lent, Letting Go, Listening, Reality--trusting it, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized, Vocation/ Calling
always knew where this life-in-God was taking him. But his Gethsemane night of agony reveals his deep confusion and misgiving: he didn’t think it would come to this. He falls on his face and prays mightily for God to find another way, sweating blood. Nevertheless, he prays, “not my will but yours be done.” Jesus […]
by David Anderson 8 Comments Filed Under: Belief, Faith/Trust, Lent, Letting Go, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized