Words of Hope: Moralism or Morality

I am reading about the form versus the formless. Dad and I discussed this often. He had a big journey in his life toward understanding this concept. It is the movement out of formalized moralism into true morality. Formal...

Continue reading →

Words of Hope: Praying for Others

Prayer always amazes me. I can fall in love with praying and get discouraged because my prayers don’t “turn out” the way I want. I know that prayer is not my tool for changing things but God’s way of...

Continue reading →

Words of Hope: A Barometer of Health

Dad believed one of the most telling ways for us to observe if we love well was to examine the quality of our relationships. Relationships reveal how we love one another. In these relationships, an excellent barometer of health...

Continue reading →

Words of Hope: Ego Dying

One thing I have been marveling at since my father’s death is the realization of grief. I feel I am awakening into the color of grief as distinguishable from despair, loneliness, and anguish. All these emotions had much the...

Continue reading →

Words of Hope: Ignatian Contemplative Prayer

Our family loves Ignatian contemplative prayer. You listen to the passage and imagine yourself in the story. Recently, we experienced a prayer session together on the Good Samaritan. The guide asked us to imagine the road from Jerusalem to...

Continue reading →

Words of Hope: The Negative Spiral

One of my favorite times with Dad was to discuss poor coaching or poor parenting as they share similarities. Dad had incredible insights into how we contribute to the unconscious dissolution of a team or family. Consider a parenting...

Continue reading →

Words of Hope: In the Beginning Was the Word

Shann taught poetry at Princeton Theological Seminary’s Center for Contemplative Leadership. He discussed the power of words. How much power does a word hold? The power to silence, to encourage, to destroy, to heal. In Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy,...

Continue reading →

Words of Hope: Retribution

Being a basketball coach, my Dad studied momentum. He analyzed how teams and coaches responded to mistakes and difficulties. He often asked, when crisis strikes, how does a family or business, or country respond? He believed those living reactively...

Continue reading →

Words of Hope: You said. I Believe.

CeCe Winans song Believe For It heals me. She has a bridge where she sings, “You said. I believe. You said it is done.” I love considering this. The great faith that amazed Jesus. I think it would be hard to...

Continue reading →

Words of Hope: Light in the darkness

We watched an evocative movie the other day. It was a modern parallel of the road to Calvary. One of the characters is an atheist doctor convinced that human suffering is the decisive reason why there is no God....

Continue reading →