Like most of us, I’ve heard the Parable of the Good Samaritan since childhood and one thing has remained constant: the Samaritan has always been presented as a second-class citizen to the Jews. The Samaritan is always the underdog and the object of scorn, derision and even persecution. So naturally, I’ve been trained to think of them as victims who did little to deserve the injustice they suffered. Isn’t the point of the story that it is the people we least expect to be compassionate who reveal our hypocrisy? Isn’t it those who have been demeaned who show us up for who we are? But the Samaritans were not victims.…

In the middle of the crippling cold snap in Texas the store manager of the HEB grocery store had to make a decision. With hundreds of anxious shoppers lined up at check-out the lights flickered and then all the power went out. It was clear there were only a few options available. He could order customers to put everything back on the shelves. He could demand they pay in cash or check since the credit card machines no longer worked. His last option was what he chose: Let everyone leave the store with what they had in their carts without paying. One of the customers, Tim Hennessy, described it in…

As a boy I did not have much time alone with my father. The best opportunities came late at night on long car trips while the rest of the family slept. Dad loved driving in silence alone with his thoughts. But, sometimes when it felt right, I would lean over the front seat and ask a question. On that evening I remember even now I said, “Dad, what do you want me to be?” I suppose every boy wants to hear his father answer that question and it was especially true for me that night. At first, I thought he did not hear me because the pause was so long…

I suppose the unexamined life is not worth living may be right for the most part. However, is it possible to have an over-examined life? In the last several years, I have been in conversations with people young and old about what it means to do something meaningful with their lives. For the young, it is mostly a question of how to invest their future years in a fulfilling and purposeful career – or series of careers. For many, this leads them to nonprofit work or social entrepreneurship as they have serious doubts about the value of either a corporate career or “menial” work. For the older, it is often…

None of us thought it would end the way it did. It began with small, almost unnoticed decisions by Mrs. Britton, our Sunday School Superintendent in the Baptist church where I grew up. Every year there was a Sword Drill competition to reward how well we had learned to locate Scripture. Standing with our closed Bibles, Mrs. Britton would call out a verse. We would throw open our Bibles and when we found the verse, step forward, recite the verse and then step back. It was the rule that the verse had to be read from the page to show we had found it and not simply memorized it. Now…

The story of Abram’s calling begins at the end of the line. If you trace the descendants of Adam through Noah and then to Terah, the line of family was about to disappear because Sarai, the daughter of the first-born of the last of Adam’s line was barren. While it had survived against great odds – it was about to be extinguished. For 1,000 years between Noah’s covenant and Abram there had been no word from The Lord. “This is the sign of my covenant” – and then silence for a millennium. I’ve wondered how they were able to live on so little from God when we expect to hear…

Twice each year the Thursday blog is a sampling of my photos with quotes. It’s that time again and I hope you enjoy both. “Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention; mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds.” – Anne Lamott ‍ “The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero ‍ “I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.” – Albert Einstein ‍ Jeff Buford (1942-2020) “Good men don’t become legends,” he said quietly. “Good men don’t need to become legends.” She opened her eyes, looking up at him.…

In 2017 Rod Dreher published “The Benedict Option” to define the new relationship between the world and the Church allowing the Church to survive an encroaching period of darkness and the loss of a dominant position.  “We should stop trying to meet the world on its own terms and focus on building up fidelity in distinct community. Instead of being seeker-friendly, we should be finder friendly, offering those who come to us a new and different way of life. It must be a way of life shaped by the biblical story and practices that keep us firmly rooted on the truths of that story in a world that wants to…

My father had a life removed from us that we knew little about until we were grown. It was only a few years before he died that I understood why. We talked about it on a series of trips we took as father and son when he was losing his health, and we knew it was just a matter of time before he could not travel at all. It was on our first of these trips that he told me about New York City and the Waldorf Astoria. Dad grew up in the poorest parts of Nashville, Tennessee. He was always a misfit there. While others resigned themselves to a…

It’s not just me but a growing number of people have made comments about a theme running through commencement speeches for the last several years. Do what matters most to you. Find your passion and follow it. Explore your deepest self. Follow your dreams and, most importantly, find yourself. It seems that the task is to make the world a better place for you chiefly. While that sounds like a value hatched by Baby Boomers and passed along to the next generation, the roots of it are found thousands of years ago in a passage from the book of Numbers. The tribes of Israel had managed to be obedient to…