love the moment

Paul Tillich, in his book The Courage to Be , defines courage as "the power of the mind to overcome fear." Most of us, when we think of courage, we think of the fortitude of soldiers, or police officers or other first responders. We might extend courage to those facing terminal illnesses or the loss of a spouse or child. In other words, we seem to reserve the term for those exceptional circumstances that we are unlikely to face in the everyday. This is unfortunate. Because courage actually is an essential component of a life lived intentionally. Particularly in this age of partisanship and slanted news coverage, it takes intention and perseverance to stay on our intended course - and avoid being blown aside or away by the winds of deceit and manipulation. It is so easy for us to repost on Facebook those things that confirm our opinions or our view of the world. It is even easier to begin to believe that our filtered view of the world is the only valid on...

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. " ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters If you are unfamiliar with the English writer, Clive Stapleton Lewis, I would encourage you to pick up his very fine book, The Screwtape Letters . It is a dialogue between two demonic bureaucrats who are attempting to condemn one struggling and pitiful to eternal damnation. I cannot confirm that these two functionaries are currently before the U.S. Senate for confirmation into the Trump administration, but it has been rumored. The Screwtape Letters is a short book, but it is not a quick read. Because Lewis' observations about the human condition and about both the heights we can rise - as well as the depths to which we can sink - are so piercing and insightful that you will want to stop frequently and ponder. But, Lewis' observation about courage and how it concerns u...

Some of you - like me - grew up going to church every Sunday. And some of you - also like me - have concluded that the "faith of our fathers" is totally insufficient to sustain any sort of modern faith or meaning. My parent's faith was nothing like the faith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - a faith that sustained him through threat of death and, finally, one would hope - death itself. My parent's faith was not a biblical faith, but rather a culturally - and distinctly - Southern one. My parents believed negroes - although surely God's children - had their place. My parents believed that the only real Bible was the King James Version - and that "idle hands are the devil's playground." My parent's voted against "Liquor by the Drink" - back when Nashville was a dry county and when the speakeasy was known about - but never acknowledged in public by the God-fearing. So as you consider the photograph I posted, do you think this ...

Have you ever - on your way home from work or the grocery - been in such a state of mind (whether reverie or worry) - that you completely missed your exit and ended up in an unexpected place? It is, I think, a common experience - and one that is both unnerving and slightly amusing.  Unfortunately, many of us have recently experienced this - and it was not amusing, but certainly unnerving. I refer to the recent election of our 45th President, a rather large orange-colored exaggeration of a distorted cartoon character. (I cannot bring myself to actually type his name here, and so desecrate my blog…) For those of you that know me well, you know that I am of that age when many men experience that thing known as a "mid-life crisis". I am glad to report that - although I certainly am/have/will experience this - I am quite experienced at navigating through it. That experience was well earned in that I seem to have been in a mid-life crisis since the age of 19. You ma...