The self-help or self-improvement industry is a worth an estimated $11 billion. While it started with books, apps, calendars, morning routines, and numerous other outlets have stretched the industry to include and comment on every minute that you are awake so that you can have “your best life now.” The irony of course is that …
I’ve been a part of a lot of systems: being a student for thirteen years, studying at university, and teaching in the public school system. Systems and institutions develop characteristics of their own over time. It’s why so many entrepreneurs study and analyze culture and how it develops. They want to develop a different kind …
Giving Up the Hustle of Protecting the Institution Read More »
In Katherine May’s beautiful book Wintering, she describes the process of preparing for a physical winter saying: I have spent most of my life trying to push winter away, having rarely had to truly feel its bite. She is speaking of the physical season but continues to elaborate that most of us do not like …
As the Spring sun lingers, so do our afternoons outside. Our five-year-old has taken up tree climbing and seeing how high he can go and whether today it will be just one more branch. Our two-year-old has taken up trying to climb the porch, the fence, the playground in attempt to keep up. I’ve learned …
A year ago, we passed our neighbors who are gardening goddesses. Their yard always looks and smells amazing and is filled with birds and rabbits who come to find sanctuary. I said in passing how much I loved their aloe plants that had grown so large they had taken up a whole corner of their …
In the midst of the contentious presidential election in 2020, I heard conversations on both side of the aisle that claimed the righteousness of their choice for president. I heard justifications and defenses, but I never heard actual debate. Debate listens to the person and the responds to the person’s points with counterpoints without demeaning …
Over and over again as I have researched and read for this Lenten series on hustle and its impact on our culture and ourselves, I have felt betrayed. Our culture is teaching us and moving us towards a life that isn’t fulfilling. We are being hustled. We are being led to believe that having more, …
As we approach the year mark of the pandemic changing our lives and shutting down schools and churches, I’m reminded of the reflection from Bronnie Ware a palliative nurse who shared the regrets and wishes of her patients. There were no mentions of having more or having bigger houses rather her patients’ number one wish …
I grew up in as a evangelical fundamentalist and if there was one thing I was sure of it was that we were right. We had the right beliefs. We had the right priorities. We were on the right path. When I expresses a call to preach and pastor, I found myself on the outside …
Currently in our country 1 in 7 kids are living with food insecurity not sure if or when they will have access to food. Recent reports indicate that this now true for 1 in 7 adults after a year of living in a global pandemic and economic crisis. Even in the midst of this pandemic …
