Finding Your Soul by David Anderson
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Passion and Passivity
Palm Sunday is also known as the Sunday of the Passion, and since we’re big into passion (as in “What are you passionate about?”) we might assume that this is the moment when Jesus gets really charged up and busy doing a lot of incredible things. Passion comes from the Latin “passio” which means “suffering,”…
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The Last Family Fight
We just don’t argue anymore. I spent the weekend with my six brothers and sisters—along with all our husbands and wives, except for my brother-in-law Larry in Kuwait. We were in Knoxville for a late celebration of my father’s 94th birthday. And we didn’t argue or fight. Which is saying something in this family. Twenty…
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Personal Sequester
The most remarkable thing about the sequester crisis in Washington is that the whole “problem” is self-caused. Our leaders designed a terrible Sword of Damocles that would drop and half-kill the country unless we worked together to find a sensible way forward. Then they refused to work together to find a sensible way forward. Now…
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Twenty Four Tributes: For My Father Turning 94
On Saturday my father, Gerald Anderson, turned 94. My brother wrote a birthday email and copied all seven of us siblings and all the in-laws. He ended by listing five gifts that Dad has passed on to all of us. 1. That you know yourself to be loved by God, 2. That you have lived in…
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The Lantern Never Lies
On the odyssey of life we need some way of knowing where we are, and whether we’re headed the right direction. In English, to be “oriented” is to know where east is. Historically, church buildings are situated so that the altar is on the east wall, and almost always a window opens to receive the…
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Twelve Months to Live
Some years ago I was enjoying a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper, when a parishioner came to me and said, “I want you to meet a friend.” I could see a woman with white hair sitting at her table. We walked over, I shook her hand and said, “Hello, my name is David Anderson.” She said,…
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A Church Comes Down
I found out today that the church I grew up in had been torn down. Calvary Baptist Church in Yankton, South Dakota. My cousin Tom, who still lives in South Dakota, sent a link to a story in the Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan—or the P&D, as we called it, the newspaper I used to…
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Trusting God When Things are Changing
“I have a great quote for you!” It was my friend Judy—the first thing she said to me when we met on a retreat this weekend. “Let me have it.” I said. “Change is inevitable,” Judy said, “growth is optional.” I nodded and we both smiled. I saw a tee shirt once that said, “Change is…