I love watching craftspeople…

We’ve been watching a British (?) show on Netflix called The Repair Shop. I’m hooked. It’s so good.

It’s incredible seeing people who are experts at a timeless craft. One woman, Kirsten Ramsay, is a ceramics and pottery repair expert. When I superglue a broken coffee mug, it still looks broken even if it’s intact. But when she does it, there’s not a smidgen of a trace that it was ever broken.

Suzie Fletcher is the leather expert and her brother, Steve Fletcher, is the clockmaker extraordinaire. …

I’m noticing something… The more I age, the harder it is to stay upright.

Gravity has a way, over time, of smooshing us into the ground. Our spines start to curve in. Our bellies bulge out from the pressure. Shoulders start to slouch.

The earth is fighting like hell to reclaim us.

We’re like old detached garages covered with vines, our shingles mangled by the wind. The relentless elements peel our paint off. Ants and other minuscule crawling creatures gnaw away at our interiors turning our foundations into dust.

Life is, by its nature, a rebellious act in the face…

Imagine what you might realize
if you poured a cup of coffee,
turned on some Mozart,
and sat down at your dining room table
without your phone
while staring out the window
for a solid hour
just being there
and letting the world around you
speak to you.

I did this the other day… It was one of those rare weekend days when nothing was on the docket for the day but hanging around the house, cleaning some stuff, hanging up a couple of mirrors that have been laying around for a month, fixing up some things. Between the tasks…

One of the central points that I’m drawn to in Christian theology is the death of the ego (lowercase-s-self) and resurrection of the Christ-Self (uppercase-S-Self).

I mentioned the death of the ego in a sermon in class the other day and a classmate of mine got a little bent by the concept. Her response was essentially (not an exact quote by any means), “I grew up in an overly legalistic household where my voice didn’t matter. I’ve worked hard through the years to develop a sense of confidence — to develop an ego.”

Another student mentioned how — typically —…

For the longest time, I took issue with one of the most fundamental parts of the Christian Creed -

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,

I mean, that’s a biggie. If you can’t get on board with THAT one, you’re kinda in trouble as far as the Christian faith is concerned, no?

Here’s where my thoughts always went:

So, Jesus of Nazareth — this one being — is the ONLY Son of God?! Like, what about all the millions of people before and after Jesus was born? Are they chop liver?

But here’s what I…

After all of these years on social media, I’m trying to figure out how to… Exist there.

I wrote an essay a couple of weeks ago about why I slapped an “auto-responder” of sorts on my Facebook wall and walked away.

I haven’t deleted my account yet. I haven’t even deleted the app from my phone. So much of life is tied into that little blue app. Plus, I like to check notifications to make sure I don’t miss anything life-threatening or urgent (haven’t so far).

People seem to show up as their worst selves on Facebook (some people say…

I happen to live in a very dry area — the eastern Sierra Valley of Northern California. You’ve heard all about our wildfires. I’ve written about them. They’re the real deal.

We. Need. Snow.

This winter, so far, has been sparse. So when we heard about the #snowpocalypse approaching, our ears perked up. That being said, we’ve had a number of forecasted storms downgraded or erased entirely in recent weeks. They just haven’t delivered as promised.

I remember the other day when I went to sleep. …

This is the sermon that I preached on the third Sunday after the Epiphany in 2021 at Truckee Lutheran Presbyterian Church. Click here to view it on YouTube (sermon starts at the 5:50 mark).

Ponder with me for a moment… Reflecting back to a year ago… So many people thought 2020 was going to be epic. A new decade. A “new vision,” as some (including myself) posited.

And then, spring happened. And the wheels started coming off. And we were all proved right. It was epic, for sure. Just not in the direction that we’d wanted. …