Some blogs are diaries – personal and revealing by making you feel you have been invited into the interior of the author’s life. Others are more like almanacs – filled with useful information and resources by pointing you to other people and places. I’m more like the latter. I want to point you to a wonderful example of the diarist who draws you into the interior of his life. Such is the case here. This is a short excerpt from David Wayne, a pastor in Baltimore, Maryland wrestling with God and cancer. “I have tried to play the good soldier in my battle with cancer but have secretly nursed a…

I pray none of my college professors read this late confession. I went to school in a time that valued citations and footnotes – not so much original thought. I learned this the hard way but over time figured out how to game the system. Here is the part I hope they do not read. If I had something I thought original to say and obviously did not have a recognized source, I would make one up and create a fake footnote. I knew the professor was far more likely to give credence to a published source than a student. I also knew the teaching assistant quickly grading the paper…

I pray none of my college professors read this late confession. I went to school in a time that valued citations and footnotes – not so much original thought. I learned this the hard way but over time figured out how to game the system. Here is the part I hope they do not read. If I had something I thought original to say and obviously did not have a recognized source, I would make one up and create a fake footnote. I knew the professor was far more likely to give credence to a published source than a student. I also knew the teaching assistant quickly grading the paper…

Some of you know I have taught a Sunday School class for 40 years. It’s my anchor as much as my pulpit. For much of that time I taught on topics or passages I chose but then I put myself under the discipline of teaching the “lectionary.” Baptists don’t call it that but that’s what it is. It is the assigned passage sent from Nashville. There are times when I would rather break out and go back to being independent but I guess this is my feeble attempt at growing in sanctification. For years, the word “sanctification” conjured up images of determined efforts to do better. You know Grant Woods’…

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…