Yesterday was our monthly all-staff meeting at the church.  This includes the four of us who meet weekly (Gwen, Mark, Mim, and me), along with our building manager Jeff D, accountant Ellen K, and custodian Elizabeth C (her husband Kevin is also a custodian but works at a school during…

There are two images I find most helpful when thinking about transitions.  One is concentric circles.  We grow and transition not along a line, but like trees, each new outer ring transcending but including every previous ring.  We are everything we ever have been- every stage, every phase and fashion. …

This summer I had a couple extended times of not checking the news.  It was kind of glorious.  I found myself less anxious, more attentive to the people and place around me.  More attentive to myself.  I guess another way of saying this is I was paying attention to other…

One of the great discoveries this summer was Bill Plotkin’s book Nature and the Human Soul.  Building on previous psychologist’s work around stages of human development, Plotkin offers a model linked with the natural world of seasons, directions, cycles, growth and diminishment.  In his model, each stage has a cultural…

An article came through my inbox recently that truly felt like a bit of fresh air as I read it, and so I thought I’d pass it along and offer my own thoughts to the author’s.  Even though it is an article from an organization that focuses on Christian Formation…