An unknown author wrote, “Real treasure lies not in what that can be seen, but what cannot be seen.”  We possess this strangely cockeyed perception that we must be able to see something in order to treasure it.  More than that, we think that we have to be able to somehow hold it in our hands.  And then, in far too many cases we think we have to be … [Read more...]

Cleaning; it’s the upkeep side of life.  It’s the irritating drudgery that’s always following us with broom in hand.  Cleaning is the voracious vacuum that’s never satisfied, the frantic feather duster that spews more dust than it captures, and the less than palatable reality that things don’t clean themselves.  The imagery is one of a collection … [Read more...]

Did you ever have one of those surreal moments when it seems like something snaps in your head and suddenly you see everything like you never saw it before?  A lot of things can trigger these moments . . . an argument, a child leaving the home, a death, a job loss, a divorce, a birthday, unexpected contact from a long-lost friend or any number of … [Read more...]

Am I paying attention?  As this thing called life moves ‘round about me, and I move ‘round about within it, am I paying attention to it all?  Am I paying attention, or have I unwittingly confused a host of other behaviors and habits as paying attention?  Am I paying attention, or have I adopted certain views or biases as ready templates that I slap … [Read more...]

“The End.”  There’s something definitively final about those two simple words. Those two, three letter words appear on the screen when the last words of the actors have fallen into an irretrievable silence and the screen has been swept barren of images.  They pen an irrefutable and final ‘period’ on the last page of novels beyond which sentences … [Read more...]

There is that exhilaratingly incessant drive within us, that unidentified but entirely electrifying spark, that rogue passion that is part of us but whose larger part is so expansive that it seems not to be part of us at all.  There are feelings that completely defy our capacity to create, but not our ability to feel.  There is a seemingly … [Read more...]

Endings can be incapacitating and painful for a variety of reasons, most of which we never identify because we’re too caught up in the loss to see anything but the loss.  We don’t really identify what we’re actually doing with whatever the ending is, or what the ending is actually doing to us because we’re too lost in the loss to even begin to … [Read more...]

I am backwards.  I don’t think I’m backwards, I wouldn’t necessarily see myself as backwards, nor would I tell you that I’m backwards; but I’m backwards.  And the oddity of it all is that I actually see backwards as forwards.  From where I’m sitting it doesn’t look backwards at all.  However, in terms of how I conceptualize the realities of life as … [Read more...]

Easter is an incredibly rich time.  It is a reminder of the fact we are terribly fallen, but it is a far, far greater reminder of the phenomenal opportunity we have of being restored.  It is inconceivable that God would die on a cross and rise again. Despite our depravity, that death was indeed solely for us.  That is both the striking message and … [Read more...]

What is the nature of our mentality anyway?  We are a complex collection of experiences, wounds, failures, successes, relationships, genetics and a wholly innumerable array of other things that press together and then settle into some sort of uniquely amalgamated compilation that makes us, us.  The nature of these things and the manner in which … [Read more...]