A few weeks ago, Sue and I drove up the California coast from San Jose all the way up into Oregon. Along the way, we stood and walked and rested in the glory of God’s creation. The first half day of driving, north of San Francisco, it seemed like we were pulling into every single scenic view parking lot we encountered on the Pacific Coast Highway. We were so struck with the beauty of waves crashing into rock, so reminded …
Category: Travel
On the Road: An unexpected find on the way to somewhere else --a visit to the historic home and studio of Indiana Hoosier impressionist painter Theodore Clement Steele, the first major artist to set up a studio in Brown County, Indiana. The surrounding landscape and Steele’s growing fame drew other artists to the area and helped establish the Art Colony of the Midwest. …
One step at a time, one day at a time, one breath and one prayer at a time. We keep walking and moving, even when the view in front of us is steep and rugged, when the view behind us reminds us of where we have been. We keep walking, even when we are reminded how much easier this was when we were younger and healthier. We keep moving because it’s much better than standing still and doing nothing. We …
Before even leaving for our trip to New Mexico, I knew one of our stops would be the majestic and oft-photographed San Francisco de Assisi Mission Church just outside of Taos. …
I still groan in wonder when I think of the view from the top of Grandfather Mountain or the early morning veiled hay field that snatched my breath away. It was the view, yes, but it was really the glimpse that got me. …
So often we don’t act because we don’t think we make a difference, as if one voice doesn’t matter, as if the buzz that comes off of our lives is insignificant. But that mindset negates the power of community — of people who put their heads down and work and get the job done, of singers who lift one voice and form a chorus, of worshippers who gather around a common table and form one body in Christ. That’s the …
This larger world around me is so big that I cannot take it all in, cannot begin to fathom the Creator and the extent of the creation. And yet I know it to be true, feel it to be truth at the center of my being. I need this landscape like I need the air that I breathe, like I need sacred scripture and the community of others and the bread and wine offered on the table of thanksgiving. …
We are shaped through no effort of our own for, despite what pop psychology might want to teach us, we cannot change our true, inner selves. We can play with our exterior, surface selves that the world judges to be “us,” but only the gentle, unrelenting will and grace of God can shape and change our true, inner selves. …
For what once was just water and rocks — the stuff of life — has become evidence of a love that extends beyond time and knows no boundaries. A love and grace wider than the Grand Canyon. For from the erosion of self comes the bounty of God and the newness of a new kind of life. …
We can walk the paths of our lives and feel like the remains of someone else’s life, not realizing that we are actually choice spots of radiant beauty, vantage points from which others might someday be able to pass en route to glimpsing the glory of God just beyond us. …