I get a fair amount of email. Some of it is a blessing and quite encouraging. Some not so much in either category. But the ones that break my heart are the e-mails from wounded and deeply discouraged people who have been devastated by life, the church and especially other churchgoers. I try to be encouraging. I try to offer perspective. But I wish I could do more. I wish I could help those battered and limping follower travelers find the abundant life that I wrote about recently.   An email from a pastor has been weighing heavily on my heart and mind. He was deeply discouraged and ready to give up his ministry. I suggested that he read the book TrueFaced because the practical theology drawn from Romans helped me recover from my own church wounds. I had hoped that the book would resonate with him as much as it did with me. Recently he responded.   I did read the
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Thirty-two years ago today I donned the hideous Robin’s egg blue tux and married the gorgeous Joni Banks. She plighted her troth to me on that day. I am not sure if she has fulfilled that pledge since I have no idea what that means. I suspect that she has because she takes her plights seriously. I am celebrating our anniversary like so many other events in our lives by traveling to a gig in another state. We did celebrate last night and she has learned to flow with my bizarre schedule. It hasn’t always been that way. The change has happened not so much with her but with me. I have gotten better at affirming my wife and learned how to make it a little less about me. I did the American guy thing for many years. I worked too much. I took my young bride for granted. I craved success and praise for my accomplishments. And too often I left her chasing rambunctious
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It never ceases to amaze me that people have enough time to troll the internet and respond to insignificant little bloggers like me. I get lots of positive affirmation from my loyal tens of readers. But occasionally someone will stumble on these ramblings and take offense to something I wrote. Their comments often leave me scratching my head and asking a simple question. Is that battle worth fighting? Good buddy Brad was good naturedly concerned about me after reading the latest post on saving baby sea turtles. “One week in paradise and you’ve become a tree-hugger!” Because I fear the humor impaired I will keep my response between brothers.  Another reader quoted my remarks about how volunteers were willing to rescue turtles while the church too often lets wounded sheep fend for themselves. First my comments: “Sad that really cool people like Sam will do that for baby turtles and that so many followers of Jesus can’t or won’t find the time to do
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Today I am leaving paradise to return to my normal life. Since I still need to work for a living I knew this day would come quickly. An amazing week on Captiva Island, Florida with my lovely bride and great friends was soothing for the soul. I was so soothed that I completely neglected the tens of readers for the week. I suspect the net results of that decision was summarized on Sunday by one of my favorite comic strips, Pearls Before Swine. The intellectual member of the gang, Goat, is looking dismayed. Resident cynic Rat asks him what the problem is and Goat responds that internet problems have kept him from posting his blog that day. Rat goes to window, looks outside, ponders for a moment and then announces this little bit of truth. “And yet somehow the world goes on.” I am sure the world went on just fine without pithy comments from your humble rambler. As I reflect on a week
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I’m not gonna lie to you…I always hesitate before I write about controversial issues in Christianity. I hesitate because I know I will receive ungraceful responses that will cause painful memories to resurface. Painful memories of being restricted by the electronic fence of legalism. I have come to realize that many leaders choose that method of “controlling” the flock. Some don’t know anything else. Some don’t wish to risk the messy and dirty work of being a real shepherd. But the damage is devastating to trusting sheep who are wounded. I knew that writing about The Shack would stir up some ugly responses from a few readers. Perhaps my disclaimer in the original post deterred a few negative responders. Perhaps some have simply given up on me. But most of the comments have been legitimate and thoughtful. I wrote a response to a blog written by David Robinson about my original article. He graciously responded to my followup and asked
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For new inductees to this site a brief update might be in order. The iPod Devotional Series is a periodic item that involves, not surprisingly, my trusty iPod and the shuffle feature. I fire up the device, go to the shuffle button, hit play and I write about whatever song is randomly selected from the 1,000 plus songs I have downloaded (all legally). My musical taste is quite eclectic so  this little feature is a bit risky. But we have already had a devotion based on Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar so how much further south can we go? Today’s song is from a artist called Five for Fighting and the selection is “Freedom Never Cries”. Wow. The shuffle could not have been more timely. Writer/singer John Ondrasik has become one of my favorites. Five for Fighting’s new CD (Two Lights) is incredible. Ondrasik writes personal and powerful songs that resonate with me. “Freedom Never Cries” is a song about how we take freedom for
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For the most part the responses to my recent post about the popular book The Shack have been thoughtful and graceful. Alert reader Kristie sent me a link to a response that she thought I would find entertaining. The website is called postmortemism and author David Robinson made some interesting observations about your humble rambler. He decided that I am illogical, condescending and ignorant. Not much in that list that I can disagree with in the big picture. I have been all of those things now and again. I do believe that in this one little instance Mr.Robinson assigned a lot of motives to my blog that I was unaware of until he pointed them out. So let’s examine where I have gone astray. In my article I suggested that followers of Jesus be careful about attacking the author of The Shack and to be careful about how we condemn the book to those who have read it. Here is a
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