Joseph Campbell
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Remember who you are
“How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing” (Luke 13:34)! Traditionally during Lent, we share vicariously in Jesus’ forty days of being tested in the wilderness to see what he was made of and who he would be. But Continue reading
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On the other side of despair
“Sometime it’s purty hard to do the right thing,” an old philosopher once said. “You don’t always know what’s gonna come of it.” Bits of folk wisdom like that, from cartoonist J.P. Alley, used to appear most days alongside the news in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. From 1914 to 1968 they provided a humanizing balance Continue reading
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Streams in the desert
“Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! . . . For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert” (Isa. 35:4-7a). If you’re anything like me, you’re looking for some good news. Not the two minutes of it you get at the end of Continue reading
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Are you hungry?
Earlier this year, many of you shared with me your greatest hope. One of you said it was to give the best of yourself to those in need. For another, it was that your daughters “live a happy life by following their hearts.” Someone’s hope was “release from injustices and abuse,” and for another it Continue reading
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This one short life
When writer Annie Dillard was a young child, she would hide a precious penny of her own for someone else to find. She’d cradle it in the roots of a tree or a crack in the sidewalk, then with a piece of chalk she’d draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions Continue reading
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The spring of life
I was mulling over what I would say to you today when I met Steven Spielberg for lunch and we started talking about his latest movie, The Fablemans. The film unlocks the meaning of most of Spielberg’s earlier movies – E.T. and Close Encounters, Jaws and Jurassic Park, the Indiana Jones films, Schindler’s List, Saving Continue reading
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Through the lens of love
According to Thomas Moore, teacher, psychotherapist, and author of the New York Times bestseller Care of the Soul, slight shifts in imagination have more impact on living than major efforts at change. Deep changes in life follow shifts in imagination. Jesus said the fulfillment of your deepest dreams and God’s greatest promises – the kingdom Continue reading
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Walk in gift today
The season of Lent, as I first learned about it, was a sack-cloth-and-ashes season when we church people felt sorry, maybe even ashamed, for how we had been living and the bad things we had done; we repented and tried to get back into God’s good graces; and we deprived ourselves of something we liked Continue reading
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The Sauntering Pilgrim 