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 primary 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…

Periodically, I think about full retirement and what that might mean. I asked one friend about it, and his response was, “Retire from what? You have the job that everyone would like to find when they retire.” He was right but I still think I’d like to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You can quit now.” Fortunately, that is not God’s plan for my life. I came to realize this in a couple of ways. First, I read the Genesis account of creation again and saw it in a new way. Man was not created as the pinnacle. His work was not meant for his own fulfillment. Rather,…

There is no topic more widely discussed and fretted about in family philanthropy than that of donor intent. Horror stories (both true and fabricated) are floated by institutions and endowments warning parents there is a high likelihood that their children will abandon their values and wishes almost as soon as both parents have been laid to rest. The classic example is that of the Ford Foundation whose trustees, according to the story, were so blatant about diverting from Henry Ford’s instructions that his son resigned from the Board in disgust, claiming the trustees had betrayed their responsibilities by funding causes that would have been abhorrent to his father’s intentions. In…

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.…