I'm writing this as I get ready to head out for a week at the beach with my extended family.  I am grateful to have a family to go and be with, a beach to lie on, and little people to boogie board with in the waves.  It is a gift. I really do know this.  But I can't fake it; I'm also daunted.  Everyone there--and there will be 35 plus folks--over the age of 18 will come with his or her spouse/partner, except me.  Every other female adult my age or younger (there are 8 of us in that category) will have--within the last year--gotten married, gotten pregnant or had a baby, the one exception being one sister-in-law whose first child is college bound.  Whether or not you are a woman, if you have ever been single longer than you thought, or been in situations where you can't escape that "odd man out" sensation, I think you might understand why ... this scenario gives me a rather large internal wave!Read more

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend my cousin’s wedding this weekend. It was a gorgeous (and very humid) ceremony in New Orleans. Let’s just say that New Orleans in late July might be the closest place to the sun on earth. Heat aside, what a joyful time it was for the family and friends of these two. Along with my family, I was so proud of this cousin, where he’s been, where he’s come, and where he’s going. He will be a great husband to this lovely woman of God as they grow in new ways, and they have the support of loving families. That said, there is no doubt my cousin has had a mischievous past, and no one at the rehearsal dinner would relent on the colorful, hilarious stories.
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I have a few treasures from my grandmother’s kitchen: her metal measuring cups, a buttery yellow mixing bowl, and her famous pound-cake recipe. A few years ago, when I dropped one of the mixing bowls and it shattered splintered sunshine on my apartment floor, I cried. Sweeping it up felt like sweeping shards of her into the trash. But there’s something I treasure even more than her well-worn tools or secret recipes: her legacy of hospitality—passed down like a precious heirloom wrapped in crocheted lace.
 
My grandmother was no Martha Stewart and for this I’m grateful. I tried following Martha’s directions once to make pretty little chocolate bowls for Valentine’s Day. Let’s just say that the directions included dipping balloons in warm chocolate, and that the result looked a lot more like an abstract painting (read: flung chocolate on the walls) than the beautiful edible bowls graced with dainty raspberries on the magazine page I’d torn out.

My grandmother’s hospitality was not Martha’s kind. No ornamental paper lanterns hung from trees, no flouted phyllo-dough hors d’oeuvres, and certainly no edible chocolate bowls. Lois’ hospitality wasn’t the kind meant to impress well-to-do neighbors, or to barb another woman with a twinge of jealousy.Read more

“Nobody is going to church,” my daughter told me recently. She was talking about people her age who had all grown up in intensely doctrined and governed churches and schools. “I ask them—do you pray? Do you have your quiet times? They all say, no.”
 
It opened my eyes to something I hadn’t realized. Others her age tell me how uncomfortable church feels, how inauthentic, how the pressure for evangelism was no longer to be tolerated, how the exaltation of a single man’s sermon feels like an abuse of power. Friends and involvements outside of church seem more real. The one kind of church experience that seems genuine, it seems, is liturgical.
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A few years ago I was sitting in a church history class in seminary. The professor was lecturing on the debate between Athanasius and Arius regarding the divine nature of Jesus Christ. A fellow student raised his hand, identified himself as a future missionary, and asked with, no small level of disdain, how this would help him be a better missionary. The professor did a fine job of explaining how theology undergirds ministry--but I'm not sure the student bought it.

I never saw another incident like that while I was at seminary. I remember it because I understand it. My mind gravitate toward that which is obviously and immediately relevant. Being a Christian (and certainly a Christian serving as a missionary) requires us to reflect upon who Jesus is and what he has done even before we answer how this affects us. We must answer the latter, but we must first dwell on the former. Read more

He sat on the curb near the west-bound on-ramp to I-10 with a ratty duffle bag at his feet and a sign in his lap. As I pulled closer to make a right hand turn, I imagined I knew what his message would be. I anticipated "hungry, please help" or "need work" or "homeless vet." But his hand-lettered SOS had only one word, and it wasn't a word I expected. It simply said "West."
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Bloodshed is not really a pretty subject. Sure, we see it pretty often on CSI and the shoot-em-up action of our movies and even video games. Still, bloodshed is a somber topic because it is not only about the loss of blood but also the loss of life. Yet in the Baptist churches of my youth I must have sung on the subject at least a hundred times:

What can wash away my sin?
 Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

What can make me whole again? 
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Why all the talk about blood? I must admit the college-educated, more urbane side of me squirms a little at the mention of the blood. I worry about what a thoroughly secular friend of mine would think about the song. In his mind, such a song would prove his point that Christian folk are strange people obsessed with strange ideas. What good is there in such bloodshed?

The rough streets of Houston provided the answer.Read more