Austin in August. The thermometer read 102 today, and our AC unit is just as busted today as it was yesterday when it was 100 degrees. It’s hotter than a Baptist preacher’s Hell. We’re waiting for a new unit. Waiting.

 Waiting is relative. When you long for someone or something, the time between now and the arrival seems interminable. You know time neither stops nor slows, yet a dozen glances at the clock tempt you to wonder. Pacing at the airport waiting for Stephanie (!), the vigil at the hospital waiting for word from the surgeon about Dad, the three eternities between when my baby son cries and the breastfeeding begins: the more I want the one or the thing the slower time moves.Read more

Soundtrack music runs the gamut between trite and smarmy all the way to powerful and moving. There are few times in recent memory when I have been as haunted by a piece of soundtrack writing as I was by Jamie Collum’s theme to Clint Eastwood’s Golden Globe nominated film Gran Torino.
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"Gimme what I want, what I really, really want."  There is the Gospel for you.  Really.  All summed up in one neat little lyric that you can krump to.

My life used to be about keeping as many irons in the fire as possible.  Just a few years ago, I was a Reserve Army Chaplain (no longer), and a Presbyterian Minister covering a small church in the countryside, and a full time Ph.D. student.  What could happen next?  Anything!  My chaplain assistant used to joke about running my congressional campaign when we were done.  Sure, why not!  Politics.  Church leadership.  Academics.  Business.  Maybe law school next.  Anything could happen. 

I had shut down no options.  But living the Christian life as a young person (the thesis of this whole blog) means finding a calling.  Making some decisions.  Choosing some things to do for God and excluding others by virtue of the choice. 

People still ask me what I want to be when I grow up...Read more

The phone rang a few weeks ago at, of course, the most inconvenient time. I think my family and I were in travail over the deadline of a science fair project. My son was dull to hear my organizational spiel, and I was dull to hear my caller, being preoccupied with such monumental things. But I knew why she called, so I began wresting my heart from frustration to focus. I just didn’t figure I would go all the way to wonder.

I had been traveling the road of infertility with her for many months. What a trip it is. I know; I did it myself. During the process I found myself suddenly aligned with myriad people who long for things unfulfilled. For the first time, I could knowingly nod with a friend who could never answer why life, movies, magazines proceed on a white-dressed parade of "happily ever afters" while she is only invited to watch. I could appreciate the elusiveness of success when hard work doesn’t pay off and of health when sickness will not relent.

There is no sense of justice or even the least bit of reason in such a place. And the questions - ugh - they cut to the core. "Why?" That one is not always answered. So it goes to, "Is it me?", opening the door to all the imaginations that blame and guilt can conjure. All the while your heart is hinting, "God, is it you?" God’s goodness secretly (so risky to mention) comes into question. Though his word states that he is, life sometimes screams that he isn’t.Read more

I ran into a buzz saw while teaching Sunday school a few weeks ago. I mean that in the most appreciative way. Let me explain.

I’ve been teaching a series on Ephesians in that class and have sought to show the way in which Paul’s vision of the exalted and glorified Christ, ruling as human king over all creation, informs Paul’s own strong sense of the Christian hope and calling. In articulating this vision I’ve made much of the way in which God has fulfilled his good creation purposes in our Lord Jesus—and in us too insofar as we are “in him.” God’s purposes in creation are comprehensive, then, including our bodies as well as our souls. Our redemption is not finally from creation but in creation, as (I’m convinced) Paul’s letter to the Ephesians demonstrates.

So how did I run into a buzz saw? Read more

Halloween got me thinking about why we like to scare ourselves. I wondered: What are we doing with what I’ll call our “horror art?”

Of the many potential reasons I pondered regarding the popularity of horror art, the one I found most intriguing was the idea that we’re trying to tell ourselves something. It’s my premise that we write and consume horror art because on some level, each of us knows that deep down a monster is lurking within us.

Think about it. Aren’t the scariest films the ones in which any of the main characters could turn into a monster? And don’t the monsters tell us more about ourselves than we might be willing to admit?Read more

For many single people, there is the haunting hope that out there somewhere, is a silver bullet--e.g. marriage--which will bring us "home," enabling us to exhale in a way that single life does not allow.  But in reality, as most married-for-at-least-a-bit people know, there is no such thing as a silver bullet in this life.  The manifestation of the "ache" just changes contours depending on our context.  In this excerpt from the last chapter ("Homeward Bound") of my recently released book, Revelations of a Single Woman: loving the life i didn't expect (reviewed by Judy Nelson, January 9, 2006), I talk about this ache and my belated discovery that learning to live well with the ache is in fact part of how we all--married or single--move towards the rest of real Home. 

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The question remains, however: What will we do when we are aching, when we are homesick? What will we do when we discover that no fantasy [wo/man], no ideal job, no chic lifestyle, no Pottery Barn digs, and no positive self-talk will completely rescue us? One option is to just keep eating chocolate ice cream and watching more Friends reruns or the History Channel in hopes of numbing out the homesickness. Read more

Some time ago a good friend wrote this in an email to our community group at church.  Sadly, he didn’t get much of a response.  But to me this is a beautiful example of what it looks like to wrestle with the implications of the Christian story for our lives.  So I thought I would share.  That or I’m just being lazy and not writing an article this month.  Regardless, it’s better than anything I could’ve come up with.

I was rambling on last night about how I have this friend that I don’t enjoy hanging out with at all.  Somewhere in there I had a point, but I think I forgot it, or maybe I didn’t even know it.  I finally figured it out at about 3:30 AM last night.  So now I can ask my question (before I forget again). 

I get home, hop in the shower, about to go to bed, and I realize I should get up and do a little “quiet time”.  I wasn't really in the mood to read, so I flipped on Monday Night Football – which was the most boring piece of TV I’ve seen in years.  I turned it off and started reading the Bible… or maybe not… I started up a game of Madden on the Xbox.  I finally started feeling tired enough to go lay down, except I still haven't done my quiet time, which is the whole reason I got out of bed.  Oh well, off to bed.  Then I wake up at 3:30 and start thinking and it finally hit me.

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My good friend Steve Halliday, single for forty-plus years before he married, once called singleness “the gift nobody wants,” likening it to a pair of really bad pajamas from an aunt who doesn’t know your size. I understand just what he means. Glenn thought this excerpt from a book I never meant to write, Moments for Singles, might encourage some of you who are wondering how many more Christmases you’ll be getting this particular, not-so-welcome gift. I hope it helps.

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Most of my single friends would like to be married. A few say they could be content to remain single for life; even fewer claim to have the gift of singleness. On the contrary, under the right circumstances, almost every single adult I know would choose the gift of marriage. But by definition, a gift is something chosen for us, not something we choose.

If God has chosen for you – today – the gift of singleness, will you gratefully receive it? Will I? And beyond receiving it, will we actively seek His design, not just for our lives in general, but for our present, unmarried state?

When my sister and I were young, she had an unusual way of receiving gifts she didn’t particularly like. I admired it, actually. While I would dutifully smile at the odd-gift giver and (insincerely) say, “Thank you very much,” Lynn would eye the unwanted gift, look at the giver, and say, “What did you give me this for?” (It drove my mother crazy.)

Looking back, I think she was on to something. God is the least fooled of anyone when we pretend to be pleased with another day or week or year of being single – and we are not. He couldn’t possibly be honored when we offer thanks for a thing for which we are not only not thankful, but secretly resentful. But I believe He actually welcomes an honest question like, “Why did you give me this, God? What is your purpose in it?” Read more

Last night my neighbor Patsy called. She lives below me and heard me come home and phoned right away. Would I like to come down and see her Christmas tree? I remembered that she planned to spend all day Saturday working on it, since mentioned it when I bumped into her in the foyer. That’s mostly when we chat, when we bump into each other in the foyer, which isn’t that often.

In our condo complex, there are a lot of women. Many of them have lived here for decades, outlasting their husbands, and now gather with one another for cards and consoling and Christmas decorating. We also have a number of single women who have careers and no husbands. I call our complex the home of the “hads” and “have nots.” (One of my single friends doesn’t think that’s funny. But I do. I crack myself up with these silly thoughts.)

At 70+, Patsy is a “had” and a still “hoping.” She’s buried two husbands, one of whom she loved. And now she meets men on the Internet. I’m not kidding. She and her sister, Judith, go online to post their Glamour Shots, and Patsy in particular gets lots of invitations. Patsy then dolls herself up in a stunning cream suit, full make-up and gold heels, and drives her Lincoln Town Car to the local Olive Garden to meet her matches.

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