We make an Olympic sport of pointing out other people’s mistakes. An Olympic athlete stands on the podium, gold medal around her neck, and fails to put her hand on her heart for the national anthem. We who could never do what she has done are offended. A presidential candidate’s wife poses topless twenty years […]
It’s easy to convince ourselves that people are trying to hurt us. When the waiter brings the wrong meal, or the nurse is slow to come to our room, or the boss criticizes our work; when the auto mechanic fails to fix the problem; when somebody swerves in front of us in traffic, or steps […]
Many of us believe in a God so loving that He will forgive anything we do, anything we say, if we only ask it and believe in Him. Even more, we believe our sin goes so deep in our bones that if we tried to earn His forgiveness, if we tried to deserve His mercy, […]
I was a lousy Army officer. Truth be told, by skills and temperament I probably shouldn’t ever have been there. But I was there, too stubborn to quit, and for twelve years I strove to become good at a calling I was unsuited for, until finally I figured out I could make a different choice. […]
I’m not a psychologist. I’m not a doctor at all, or a minister, or a counselor. People don’t often come to me with their problems, unless their problems are related to my work. No, I’m just a guy who’s been around for a while and seen a few things. Most of the stuff I write […]
I no longer consider myself exclusively Christian. But I love Christmas. I didn’t always. For a big chunk of my life, it was always somebody else’s holiday: before I embraced Christianity, it was too much about Jesus, and after, it was too much about buying and consuming. There was always something to be mad about […]
Wherever you go, there you are. I have no idea who first said this, and for once, Google is no help. It’s the title of a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn, first published in 1994, but a friend of mine used to use the phrase in high school in the late ’80s. But where it comes […]
Most folks don’t normally think of the Pope as a hero. To Catholics, he’s a leader, spiritual guide, giver of laws. To non-Catholics, he’s a role model, maybe. In some unfortunate cases, he’s a misguided–or even malicious–purveyor of hatred and intolerance. To many, he’s irrelevant, just an old guy in a funny hat. But a […]
Former South Africa leader Nelson Mandela. How many of us could forgive our enemies, time and time again? How many of us could spend thirty years in prison and emerge ready to make peace? How many of us could allow a small group of people to oppress our own, larger, group, sometimes brutally, then when […]
When someone wrongs us, we get angry. It’s really that simple. The greater the wrong, the greater the anger. And it’s easy to hold onto anger. If we don’t make an effort to get rid of it, it remains. It festers. It grows. Anger becomes a desire for retribution, for vengeance. It turns into resentment, […]