Patsy talked about her last real meal. The evening before going to the hospital with abdominal pain and vomiting, she enjoyed a home-cooked meal at her niece’s, complete with vegetables picked from the garden that day. After that evening, and for the 10 weeks until her death, she never had another home-cooked meal, or another […]
Ode to my truck
A basic tenet of Buddhism is nonattachment. In fact, if you cut through lots of the church doctrine that’s been added over the centuries to Christianity, if you get back to the basic teachings of Jesus, he too taught nonattachment. Jesus and Buddha knew that life’s meaning and true joy were not to be found […]
Born again, part 2
The “Born Again” article was published in the Abilene Reporter News as an opinion article. A few days later two different people responded to the article with letters to the editor. They each quoted scriptures liberally informing me what it really meant to be born again. They took me behind the woodshed and scolded me […]
Growing from the inside out
This article begins a new series about growing up. Not growing up in the traditional sense, where you can mark your progress on the door frame or you start shaving or you get your drivers license, but growing up on the inside. Leg aches were a tangible sign of physical growth. I had severe leg […]
Letting go of homophobia
I was one of four people being interviewed on a radio program a few years ago. The topic was homosexuality in our culture in general, and in the church specifically. The panelists represented several different Protestant denominations. Two panelists were lesbian; the other two were heterosexual who were affirming of gays and lesbians. It was […]
Letting go of prejudice
Changing one’s mind is one of the three hardest things for a person to do, according to Anthony de Mello. The other two are returning good for evil and admitting we are wrong. But those two are for later articles. Changing our minds isn’t about compromising our principles or reversing our position on an issue […]
Letting go of the outcome
I watched a little drama unfold one day in the hallway of the counseling center where I worked. One of my colleagues had been teaching another colleague how to knit. The new student of knitting brought his first product to work to show. It was the first 8” of a scarf. As he proudly displayed […]
Letting go of needless stuff
I’m a bit of a sucker for those TV shows that transforms a house that has been overtaken by clutter. I’m not talking about hoarding. That’s a whole ‘nother level of disorder. I’m talking about people like me who accumulate stuff because we like it or think we need it, only to discover at some […]