Finding Your Soul by David Anderson
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My Father’s Thanksgiving Hymn
My father, as drawn by my nephew, Kasper Kavalaris I grew up in a Swedish Baptist Church in Yankton, South Dakota. My family sat in the second pew, one long enough to hold my two brothers, my four sisters, my parents, and me. We sang all the American gospel hymns—by Fannie Crosby, Charles Wesley, Ira…
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A War Is Raging. You Don’t Have To Choose Sides.
It’s hard to get people to kill other human beings—unless we can convince them that the enemy is not really human. The history of war shows us over and over the campaigns countries wage to dehumanize their enemies so that it will be possible to kill them without sadness, remorse or shame. Most of us…
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Amazing Grace & Astounding Gratitude
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…
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The Day of The Dead, Mexico City
The funeral home in town has recently changed its name. It is now a “Life Celebration Home.” We are a death-avoidant culture. And the church is, often, little better. Many are deep-sixing funerals for “Life Celebrations.” The irony, the unintended sadness, is that the more we try to banish death, the more troubled about death…
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The Mended Wall
One day, not long after we moved into the Rectory at Saint Luke’s Parish, one of my daughter’s friends—a young driver—was backing out of the driveway late at night and hit the column on the end of the old stone wall that ran along the road. The end-column, about a foot higher than the…
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‘I Need To Ask God Why’
Almost no one is Israel is untouched by the horrific killings on that early morning, October 7th. Daniel Levy, a 34-year-old physician and father of two, was killed in his kibbutz near the Gaza border as he tried to minister to the wounded. Overcome with grief, with anger and rage at the wonton savagery, Daniel’s…
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The Spiral Staircase
“We’re going in circles! We’re going in circles!” That was the sing-song cry from the backseat when our kids were young and we were lost, trying to follow directions, turning, turning and ending up back where we started. Not long ago I was suffering through a difficult passage. Fears I thought I’d dealt with were…
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Tell The Truth–Before Your DNA Does
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…
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Unlearning the Lessons of Happiness
“How happy are you?” Happiness studies are all the rage these days, and happiness books abound. The most popular courses at Ivy league colleges are devoted to happiness and what it takes to get it. The tricky thing is, happiness surveys are self-reporting. People respond to questions like: I am pleased with the way I…