Spiritual maturity

May 10, 2023 | 1 Comment

The Spiritual Gift of Suspicion

You may have heard these before: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues. These are the spiritual gifts (or at least the ones listed in 1 Corinthians).

Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine in Suspicion (1941) Add exhortation, giving, leadership, mercy, prophecy (again), service, and teaching (from Romans); apostleship, evangelism, the pastorate, prophecy (yes, again), and teaching (from Ephesians); and the sometimes uncomfortable gifts some scholars include like celibacy, hospitality, martyrdom, missions, and poverty.

Healing sounds great. Martyrdom, not so much. Nevertheless, they are all gifts from God.

Yet, I want to offer the modest proposal of a subcategory of spiritual gifts. I want to add the spiritual gift of suspicion. Hear me out. [Read more…]

November 5, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Letting go

I’m a hanger-on. I hang onto things…memories, old receipts, friendships, bad song lyrics. There’s good and bad in hanging on.

“The stripped and shapely maple grieves

the ghosts of her departed leaves”

John Updike’s poem, “November,” in A Child’s Calendar, chimes to me the beginning of the holiday season: the over-eating of Thanksgiving, the frenzy of Advent, the bone-deep joy of Christmas, and the excitement of Epiphany all begin after this reminder that all gain is loss. All loss is gain. And we are the better for it.

This fall has been a lovely one in our lower Arkansas Valley of Colorado. Ours is never the glamour autumn of New England, but this year the river bottom turned flaming yellow, the backyard trees orange and lighter brown, and the leaves crunched under my feet on my slow morning jogs in City Park. [Read more…]

February 18, 2021 | Leave a Comment

Here’s to the enforcers

I’ve realized a lot about myself as a leader since last March. You know what I figured out just last week? I probably knew it but I never really put it into words? I hate being an enforcer. I can do it, but I hate it.

“No, no, you have to wear a mask when you come in on Sunday. No, you really have to wear a mask. No, it actually has to go over your nose. That’s the whole point. Really.”

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Did I mention that I hate it?

I said as much last week in my Sunday message, as I made a larger point about how hardship can–not every time, but many times–shape us closer into the image of God.

As I repeated, “I hate it,” for the fourth or fifth time, I began to see knowing looks, heads nodding slightly, in the congregation. Ah, I thought, those are the other enforcers out there. They hate it, too.

We’re doing the work–however imperfectly–to lead through a pandemic.

None of us are enjoying this. None of us.

So, here’s to the enforcers–to the principals, the supervisors, the coaches, the teachers, the pastors, the administrators, the flight attendants, and everybody else whose job descriptions include looking out for other folks. You’re exhausted, too, and we know it.

Thank you, enforcers, for the hours spent pouring over public health orders, crafting safety plans, revising safety plans, communicating the new and newly revised safety plans, and then making those safety plans happen in the face of constant suspicion (at best) and outright hostility (at worst).

Thank you, enforcers, for keeping us safe.

Bible Verse of the Day