April, 13 2009. A stuffy old flea market in Müllheim, Germany. I’m wandering around with that mix of anticipation, whimsy and determination that tends to motivate people like me to darken the door of mouse-overrun dirty spaces. In America, we now call them “pickers.” In Germany, we call them Glastopfeingerichkenhemmers, or something just as long […]
I used to scrapbook. I’d cover the surface of my dining room table with all the accoutrements of a Memory Maker and go on a cutting-and-pasting binge. The first few hours were usually meticulous. The final few were to scrapbooking what Britney Spears is to acting…and singing…and clothing. By the end of three straight days […]
Wednesday, 12:30 pm. What the French would call a “long moment of solitude.” I stood at the front of a classroom at Moody Bible Institute and smiled at the sole occupant of its 50-some seats. “You know what this session is about, right?” I asked, convinced that his solitary presence was the result of some […]
We love a good morality tale, don’t we? The Boy Who Cried Wolf taught us not to lie. The Little Red Riding Hood taught us to go straight home. Well, here’s a morality tale ripped straight from Michele’s Epic Romantic Failures. The time: July, 1989. The place: Roche-les-blamont, a small village in eastern France. The […]
I don’t like forwards. Forwards are to me what toupees are to Donald Trump. Overrated and unnecessary. But this short video caught my eye in a way that may be surprising to you. I watched it with the sound turned off, as I was simultaneously glued to some post-modern drivel on TV at the time. […]
My mom and I were sitting at her dining room table yesterday, in Port Franks, Ontario (that’s Canada, for the geographically challenged), each engrossed in answering emails, when I heard a faint sound from outside the windows. A paddle-boat, I thought. Or children splashing in the puddles left by the night’s storms. I got back […]
They say some of us have the gift of compartmentalizing. In my case, it’s the gift of drawerizing. I have my life neatly divided into convenient drawers: my Ministry drawer, my Personal Growth drawer, my Spiritual drawer, my Relational drawer… The drawer I open least often is probably my Future drawer. I guess that’s the […]
“Prayer is weakness leaning on omnipotence.” W. S. Bowd Prayer is a nebulous thing. It can be a frustrating endeavor, its effects unpredictable and often unknown. Its mystery can be discouraging when we, in direst need, enlist it to seek victory over death, which in a fallen world is an unavoidable fate. It’s just that […]
(A 4-minute video is at the bottom of this post. Please pass it on to anyone you know who is transitioning too…) It’s 7 am on my last day in Germany. I hear birds chirping outside the windows of the two-hundred-year-old house I’ve been loaned by friends for my final week here. Just two minutes […]
Some people dream of walking across the stage of Hollywood’s Kodak Theater to receive an Oscar. Others dream of standing on an Olympic podium while their country’s flag is raised. My own ambitions might seem insignificant in contrast: I dream of being a graduation speaker at Black Forest Academy. If I were invited to […]