by David Anderson
A few days ago I walked to the rim of the Grand Canyon and looked over the edge. I felt a twinge in my stomach and my mouth dropped slightly open. My first visit—I don’t know what I was expecting. I had seen countless pictures, but of course no flat image, measured in inches, could […]
by David Anderson 11 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Awe, Beauty, Grace, Nature/Creation, Seeing, Surrender, Transformation
“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
Jesus did not try to change one person. He certainly didn’t set out to change the world. We hear a lot these days about “theory of change.” It’s a term in non-profit, philanthropy and development that describes the organization’s goal of social change and the step-by-step process for achieving it. I’m sure it does all […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Family, Grace, Lent, Transformation
How I pray is breathe.” -Thomas Merton I grew up with the slogan, “Prayer changes things,” which I believed. I was just wrong about what got changed. I thought it could change my lot, save my soul, rescue people I cared about. I hoped I could change God’s mind. Not surprisingly, that kind of prayer […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Belief, Breathing, Change, Daily Practice, Grace, Healing, Lent, Letting Go, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation, Surrender, Transformation
The virulent conflict we experience in our world is fueled by a need on both sides to win at all costs, to be right and—even more important—to prove others wrong. We all have the “talking points” committed to memory. We can rally the facts and marshal the stats to “take down” another person. Yet even […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Awareness, Character, Community, Lent, Transformation
There was once a young boy who would wander in the woods. His father became concerned as he went deeper and deeper into the forest each time, so one day he said to the boy, “I notice that every day you walk into the woods. Why do you go there?” The boy replied, “I go […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Daily Practice, Lent, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Seeing, Silence, Transformation
The original word for repent is not so much lost, as destroyed in translation. Wherever in the New Testament we see the word “repent,” it’s a gross mistranslation of metanoia. The problem seems to have begun with Jerome, who in 382 translated the Greek New Testament into the Latin Vulgate. When Jerome got to Matthew […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Change, Daily Practice, Grace, Lent, Mercy, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation, Seeing, Surrender, Transformation