Tag: Heart

  • Living With A Tender Heart – Holding The Tension

    Living With A Tender Heart – Holding The Tension

    How then does a tender heart live in the world these days? That’s a question I asked in a post about a month ago. It’s a question I continue to carry and live with. Maybe you also are carrying and living with that question. To ask the question is to stand in and hold the… Read more

  • Too Tender For This World

    Too Tender For This World

    Do you sometimes feel like your heart is just too tender for this world? A few weeks ago I received a text message from someone saying that’s how he felt. I didn’t have to ask what he meant. I know that tenderness. I feel it and experience it almost daily.  Tender Places Another war, this… Read more

  • “The Heart Has Its Reasons” – A Sermon On Matthew 21:32-32

    “The Heart Has Its Reasons” – A Sermon On Matthew 21:32-32

    “Get out of your head and into your heart.” I can’t count the number of times my spiritual director has said that to me over the last thirty years. I’d go to him with a problem or I’d ask him, “What’s the right answer?” or “What should I do?” He rarely gave me a direct… Read more

  • Healing Our Divided Life – A Sermon On Matthew 5:21-37

    Healing Our Divided Life – A Sermon On Matthew 5:21-37

    Our older son Brandon often brought a friend over for supper. He was a really nice kid. He was polite and well behaved. He always said and did the right thing. I don’t remember his name but I do remember that between ourselves Cyndy and I sometimes referred to him as Eddie Haskell.  Do you… Read more

  • Deep Listening – A Sermon On John 1:43-51

    Deep Listening – A Sermon On John 1:43-51

    If 2020 showed us anything it revealed how necessary that kind of deep and intentional listening is, and how difficult it is to sort through all the voices we hear, both within and outside ourselves, and discern a truthful way forward. I don’t expect that kind of listening to be any less necessary or difficult… Read more

  • Recentering Life – A Sermon On John 14:1-14

    Recentering Life – A Sermon On John 14:1-14

    Spoken or unspoken, I think there’s a question every troubled heart is asking. Will the center hold or is everything collapsing around us? That’s my question and maybe it’s your question too. I think it’s one many are asking. And today Jesus answers, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Read more

  • Battling For The Heart Of Humanity – A Sermon on 1 Samuel 17:1, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49

    Battling For The Heart Of Humanity – A Sermon on 1 Samuel 17:1, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49

    We all face giants, Philistines, in our lives. Sometimes it’s personal and unique to our particular situation. Goliath might be an illness, loneliness, the loss of a loved one. Maybe a rift in a relationship is standing tall. Or maybe it feels as if your life is moving out of control and you’re powerless to… Read more

  • Interrupting Business As Usual – A Sermon On John 2:13-22

    Interrupting Business As Usual – A Sermon On John 2:13-22

    I don’t think this story is simply about Jesus getting angry. Jesus got angry. I get angry. It’s ok to get angry. That misses the point. There’s more to this story than that. And I don’t think it’s about the animals or the moneychangers being in the temple. Jesus surely had to have known they… Read more

  • Seeing With The Eye Of The Heart – A Funeral Sermon on 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:9

    Seeing With The Eye Of The Heart – A Funeral Sermon on 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:9

    Richard knew a “secret, a very simple secret.” He knew and trusted that “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, chapter xxi) That is the secret that sustains us through our losses and gives hope on this… Read more