Life at 3 miles an Hour

In recent weeks I've been blessed with a  challenging personal question, followed a few weeks later by an opportunity for some rest and reflection, where the question kept struggling to the surface.  The question in this instance was what I considered to be my greatest weakness as a practitioner of the pastoral arts.  The way it usually works is that a burning personal question appears in one form or another, followed by some brief attention and then a dive deep back into the next thing, resulting in not only forgetting the response, but eventually also the original question.  Ironic because my answer to this particular question was my difficulty in slowing down, backing off, and resting. For twenty four years I've lived and breathed "church".  Although there are some in the world convinced that I only work 30 minutes a week during my preaching and teaching opportunities, multiplied where multiple weekend services are involved and an occasional wedding or funer...

Generally I prefer relaxed in a coffee shop environment.  All I need is a good blend of coffee drawn by competent hands, a comfortable place to sit, some table space and free wifi, and I'm a happy boy.  Usually, it goes without saying, the relaxed part comes with the territory.  It's an unwritten social norm that such an environment is for casual connections or introverted joyous solitude.  However, at least once a week I find myself seated in a Starbucks where this social norm doesn't rule the day.  Like a moth to fluorescent light I'm drawn to ground zero in the heart of the Amazon campus to be enveloped by the intensity of a culture that rarely rests.  It's rarely relaxed. I usually come away from the experience a bit more exhausted and weary, but I keep coming just the same. There is almost never a line of less than a dozen waiting to order and another dozen waiting on orders placed.  Most conversations are animated and elevated to overcome the ...

As someone who has been given a certain mechanical aptitude along with the accompanying joy of building things, living in this neighborhood can sometimes be a virtual playground for my imagination.  In the midst of the expected annoyance of noise, dust, and traffic diversions rises a sense of wonder and amazement of watching buildings from 7 to 40 stories high rise on nearly every corner of my neighborhood ... many at the same time.  Living here and daily walking these streets I have had the privilege of watching these steel and glass giants rise from deep holes formed by concrete and rebar.  Like a time-lapse video, this process spans the course of months until, before you realize what you're really seeing, the finishing touches are being put on and those who have crawled over, under, and inside these structures pack their lunch and tool boxes and move on to another corner and another reclamation of abandoned space.  In recent days, a...