just enough light

By the time you read this, the Texas House of Representatives will have voted on and likely passed the state budget which severely cuts the funds for public education.  This will, of course, have significant repercussions not only for those who work in our schools, but it will negatively impact the state over the long-term. […]

We must give up the idea that we have to be right and that others therefore have to be wrong. We must embrace the idea that we each have something to learn from the other, even the other who is so different we get scared. It also requires that we keep our mouth shut until we have heard the other person fully and clearly rather than jumping in as soon as we have formulated a rebuttal.

When you have a group advocating one narrow perspective on history, a lot of influential people and a lot of important views get downplayed or eliminated, a lot of important history gets ignored. By eliminating from the curriculum an exploration of “institutional racism”, the school board has presented us all with a crystal clear example of it.

This is not just a criticism of the Tea Party Express. A liberal Democratic rally would have been the same. Democrats would have made the same sweeping generalizations that the tea partiers made. They would have gone for the same cheap applause. They would have invoked the same God to support their causes. But, when we trot God out as a supporter of our personal causes, we reveal how small our faith really is.

The noise and hostility, at least in part, appears to be those of us who have always been in charge now fearing that we are losing or have already lost the privileges that come with being in charge.

What a thought: opposing sides gaining respect for each other rather than trying to score a knockout. Dialogue does not assume we will all agree, but out of dialogue can come creative options we could never think of if we were busy yelling and not listening.

I was reminded that humility expressed through confession, and gratitude expressed through generosity, are the primary attitudes that Christians must take in their lives. Humility and gratitude are also the primary positions we as a nation need to take in our dealings with others in the world.

Mark Twain once observed that “at the age of twelve a boy starts imitating a man, and he just goes on doing that for the rest of his life.”  I suspect this is truer today than in Twain’s day.  There is no time or event that signifies a boy’s entrance into manhood.  Our culture provides […]

Living in the meantime acknowledges the fear but is not paralyzed by it. We all live in the meantime. We have no choice. The task is to recognize it and make choices accordingly. Charlotte Joko Beck wrote, “We have sacrificed our life in this moment in order to think of things that are not present.”

I believe that in striving to be a “good enough” parent, sometimes the best we can do is make sure our intentions are visible in our actions. What I hope for my children is that they possess an inquisitive mind, a tender heart, a strong moral intuition, a sense of personal responsibility, and the capacity to endure disappointment. If that’s what I want for them, I need to make sure they see those qualities in me, consistently, daily, over the course of years through all the normal, routine activities of family living and growing up.