Tag Archives: materialism

Asking Why is Terrifying Yet It’s the Only Road to Truth

This journey to realize and claim our birthright as children of God only begins when we ask why. When we question the world. When our heart whispers to our head because intuitively it knows that something is very, very wrong within God’s good world.

The Myth of Divided Loyalties, the Lies We Tell Ourselves and the Suck of Politics

In 1963, three years before I was born and two years after the US sent its first combat troops into Vietnam, CS Lewis would write, “The greatest evils in the world will not be carried out by men with guns, but by men in suits sitting behind desks.” More than sixty years later, his words […]

My Blue Christmas

I used to love Christmas and the things that surrounded it. The luminous lights, the December decorations, and of course the tasty treats. Remembering a time before the Internet when you couldn’t buy peppermint bark in July and when Santa’s wasn’t competing with scary witches. Our years in America are no longer marked by the […]

Appalachian Summer: An Unexpected Lesson in Gratitude

When I was sixteen going on seventeen, our church youth group learned about the Appalachia Service Project (ASP), a Christian nonprofit ministry focused on the “eradication of substandard housing in Central Appalachia.” Growing up, I was aware that there were families who didn’t have the same standard of living we did, but participating in ASP […]

Love, Not Might, Makes Right: A Birthday Story About Baseballs and Bullies

Social media was buzzing with outrage and opinions last weekend, like it does every day of the week, when a well-aged Phillies fan became irate over a home run ball that was hit into the stands by Harrison Bader of the Phillies. As the crowd scurried for possession of the battered ball, a father who […]

A Life of False Faiths and Pointless Purpose

For most of my adult life, I professed that I had no faith; well, at least in God. A bold and belligerent bellow that was big headed because of my own blind spots. An ego stoked by wealth, worldly success and wanting to evade the examination of my own earthly expiration. Mellowed by maturity and […]

The Teapot No One Wants

As my years on this planet have accumulated, so has the stuff I’ve amassed. Even though I’ve made numerous attempts at “downsizing,” my success is always short lived and short of any sense of minimalism. I’m still hanging onto stuff because of my sentimentalism and sense of sacredness for things that remind me of those […]

The LA ICE Riots and Veterans: An American Cain and Abel Story

There are two images from this past weekend that have stayed in my head and settled in my heart. Pictures that say everything about the present state of affairs in America and the timelessness of the human condition. Modern day illustrations of the Cain and Abel story reenacted in the city of angels without the […]

The Myth of Love: More Misguided Counsel From a Confused Culture

Like other mixed messages from our culture, we get schizophrenic signs as it relates to love, specifically romantic love. On one hand we’re told to chart our own course and be our own person even if we have to go it alone. Don’t let anyone or even society stop you from pursuing your dreams or […]