This past Saturday morning, I attended a workshop at The Colossian Forum's annual conference. The workshop was titled Beyond Good Intentions: The Practices of Calm Presence. The presenter, Trisha Taylor, has been a coach to me and a friend for…

The recent movie Yesterday is mostly a light-hearted romantic comedy with a divertingly fun premise.  Although the movie (wisely) never tries to explain it, the premise is that the entire Planet Earth underwent a history-altering event.  For around eleven seconds,…

Author’s note: this is the second in a series of reflections written as letters to my mom, but you can insert your name here, too. I hope to highlight some of the events and insights I have had since moving…

“Is this the end of the world?”“It usually is.” That zinger appears near the conclusion of the kooky and wonderful Post-Rapture Radio, Russell Rathbun’s 2008 novel, which inventively satirizes American Evangelicalism for its shallowness and materialism. Toward the end of…

It's not a particularly good picture, but it'll have to do. That's our house up at the top, maybe fifty yards or so away from the camera and me. What's between us is five years' worth of sweat and toil…

In Canada, I noticed that when I said “thank you” to someone, they most often responded by saying, “No worries.”  I love this. It’s because I’m a fairly worried person, on the whole. I think that when I thank someone,…

Last week, Diet Eman—whose incredible time in World War II as a member of the Dutch Resistance included rescuing Jews, gathering intelligence, and surviving stints in concentration camps and as a fugitive herself—died at age 99. My fellow 12er, Jim…