Wilderness Wonderings...

I love the word ‘simple.’ I like the ‘sssss’ at the beginning…it’s a sound soft and soothing. I like the ‘imp’ in the middle…the way I have to have bring my lips together and then pop them apart to get that ‘p’ sound. And, I like the sort of raspy ‘llll’ at the end…how I have to move the sound back towards the middle of my mouth, sliding towards the throat, to get that soft sound to come out…. And, of course, I tip my hand here as to my propensity towards philology…in its very literal meaning. I love words…and, more precisely, I so enjoy examining the effect and power of words. For me, ‘simple’ is a word of power, able not only to conjure smooth and rounded images in our minds, but even able to lower our heart-rate and breathing, to drop our blood pressure a few points. Yes, this is a good word…and we ought not to use it lightly! So, on to the idea of ‘simple church.’ For some, there is a sudden, just-out-of-reach disconnect when we put these two words together. Why? Because for some...

I lay in bed night before last, the windows open for our cool “fall” nights here in the Rio Grande Valley, and I could hear the wind as it rustled through the leaves of the tree in our backyard. We are just an hour from the Gulf coast, and the wind often blasts off the open water and over our flat lands here in the Valley at 20 mph or more. Besides cooling off this usually warm land, the wind also provides a soothing, calming symphony to fall asleep to. So it was the other night…the undulating winds—at once soft and gently swishing through the leaves…then a moment of calm…and suddenly a blast that fairly shook the tree like maracas. As I lay there, I noticed that patterns of the wind were completely unpredictable…yet the wind was still calming in its random coming and going. As I lay there, I recalled what Jesus had said one evening…perhaps while listening to the night winds blowing through a nearby sycamore tree: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot...

The wind whistles through the windows, rain pelts the window panes and temperatures fall by the minute as the cold front hurries down from the north.  When I went to bed last night, gentle winds from the southeast caressed our corner of the world, stars shone brightly in the night sky.  I had stepped outside just before bed to breathe deeply the comparative cool of the evening, preparing to go and sleep.  And then, around 5am this morning, everything changed.  I awoke to winds and rains…and to the cold air blowing through the house.  I awoke refreshed, filled with anticipation at the changes rushing in upon us. I sit now in our living room, awake and writing far too early, listening to the patter of rain as if falls on leaves and driveway.  Because the winds still blow, and colder by the moment, and because we are reluctant to close up the house, I sit wearing my polartec…bringing back memories of winters in Monterrey where we could not escape the winter c...

Recently, a good friend and I were chatting about church, missionaries and missional things, and she asked me, “Could you write something about missions for me? It seems that there’s a new “generation” of leadership at our church, and they just don’t get it.” So, I write this in part to fulfill my friend’s wish…and in part to remind myself what it is we’re doing and why we’re doing it. One of the great effects of our Western mind-set or way of thinking has been the “compartmentalization” of so many aspects of life including the life of faith, the Christian life, the life of the Church. We have effectively made “missions” one of the committees of the church, one of the things that’s included in our budget, or one of the annual emphases of the church calendar. I was about to write, “If one undertakes a careful study of Scripture…,” when I realized that all one really needs to do is to make a rather cursory review of Scripture to see the truth of the matter. If we were ask regular churc...

(Adaptado de una presentación que impartí en el XV Seminario de Educación en El Instituto Laurens, el 28 de Mayo del año 2011, Monterrey, Nuevo León, México) En este ensayo, quiero compartir lo que he encontrado en casi 20 años como educador. Me imagino que la lista completa de competencias que pueden ayudar los maestros es una lista inexhaustible; entonces, mi meta aquí es nada más que compartir las cinco competencias más importantes para los maestros de aula en este Siglo XXI. Antes de compartir las competencias, quiero compartir con ustedes un poquito de mi propia filosofía de educación. No se preocupe—sería muy breve! Tengo yo dos propósitos en mi trabajo como maestro de redacción/retorica. Primero, quiero ver que mis estudiantes son mejores escritores cuando salen de me aula en el fin del semestre que cuando entraron en el principio; segundo, quiero ver que mis estudiantes son personas cambiadas, diferentes, por estar en mi aula un semestre. Como maestro, soy empleado para ens...

Sounds like an odd confession coming from this disciple, pastor, missionary guy, but stay with me…. The lady is an amazing woman who has affected my life in profound ways. I have watched her and learned from her. She has molded me and shaped me in many ways. I listened to her as she told stories, as she conversed with others, as she spoke in gentle whispers and in those rare occasions when deep anger rose to the surface. I followed her at times through great crowds of people…and sat near her around tables, on beaches and in cars. Her songs lulled me sleep…her voice called me to life in the mornings. However, the curious thing is that I never ‘met’ this woman—Mom was just always there. Having grown up in the Church and in a Christian home, Jesus was just always there. From the Bible stories that my parents read to me at night…to the prayers around the table at meal-times…to the Bibles that seemed to form a part of my parents’ accoutrements—Jesus was just always there, simply part of the...

One of the “cool” things about living outside the US for so long is that I now return and so much is new to me. In the daily wanderings of life, I happen upon things that have long become “old news” for the culture-at-large…but are delightfully new and exciting for this boy. Okay, so she’s a little crude…and the humor sometimes a little “off color” (so to speak!)…but the message and impact astound. In fact, I’ve only had two of these experiences so far, but each time I was brought to tears—quite literally—as I watched the stories unfold. Sometimes they were tears of laughter…at other times tears of emotions that welled up from within. I have to say, Madea is…”the bomb!” Tyler Perry has created an amazing character. Rather, he has created an amazing slate of characters in his Medea movies. Of course, Medea is that delightful “Big Mama”-esque figure (the character brought to life in Martin Lawrence’s hit movies)…but she is deeper and more than Big Mama. She is hard, harsh, in your...