What king would stoop so low, As to touch a bed of straw? ‘No prince I know would have the gall!’ Yet, true the prophets said it so, A king would be born one night. ‘But in a pauper’s plight?’ A cave, a cold dank thing it was There bundled in the gloom. ‘Bah, Just…
The Value of Obsession
I love the novel, Moby Dick. The fateful journey of captain Ahab and crew brings a kind of telescopic context to life. For Ahab, a near fatal first pass at the whale had him tasting brine mixed with his own blood. That defeat crept into his soul, and retribution became an obsession. The novel wends…
Elwood
In the back of my mind I’ve always carried a picture of Elwood. He was not a friend of mine. In fact, I despised him in high school. He was the track manager, and wore coke bottle glasses, hitched his pants up to his belly button, and carried one of those plastic contraptions in his…
Get Ready for Your Float!
The last time floats cruised down the ‘canyon of hero’s’ in downtown Manhattan, was when the NY Giants after won the super bowl. I was standing 20 rows deep, and felt grateful to be there. A million others had been forced to crane their necks an entire block away, to snap futile IPhone shots of…
How to Pray for This Generation
David Livingstone died much the way he lived, in prayer by his bedside. He had cut a ‘gospel road’ through the interior of Africa, and forged alliances that ultimately lead to the abolition of slavery. So beloved was he that nations fought over his body. Britain wanted it returned for a proper ceremony, but the…
I Thought Love…
For me, a deep connection exists between love and prayer. The following poem sheds light on the futility of love’s pursuit aside from God’s invitation to ‘come,’ and tells a parallel story of grace found in prayer’s intimate union. I thought love a feeling, But somewhere in time It scurried away, So I sought the…
In the Safe Box
My friend Abraham lives in Jericho, the oldest city in the world. He’s the sheik of his small village, which hugs a hillside just out of town. I met him several years ago on the road to the old city, and he became my adjunct tour guide, and then gracious host. When I stepped across…
Standing Room Only
The line stretched two city blocks; all twenty something’s, clustered in groups, sipping lattes, laughing and taking phone shots. I kept walking and walking, thinking I would never find the end of the line. The club opened in half an hour, so I settled myself in the back of the line. When the line slowly…
The Albatross Moment
The Albatross Hotel sits a couple blocks from the Atlantic, a tired heavy-set Victorian B & B, in Ocean Grove New Jersey. I was there on a two-day personal retreat to clear my head, and try to get the weary out of my bones before the school year began. I hadn’t been able to shake…
Alone-Time Endurance
A few years ago I wrote a prayer exercise for a buddy of mine struggling to endure the solitude that prayer demands. I titled it, “Thirty Days to Connect to God’s Heart—a prayer primer.” He told me he wanted more intimacy, and prayer from everything he studied promised to deliver. But he didn’t know how…
Bending Birch
Bending birch trees has a lot to teach us about the way God grows our heart. Something more is at play when we pore over the Word, or carve out time to pray-the stuff of our devotional life. God is planting moral courage, and planning a funeral for our fears. It’s not about good feelings,…
The Myth of Ascent
The year was 1974, my brother JoJo and I had set out on a two day motorcycle camping trip, determined to follow the old railway line through northern New Jersey and up to the Delaware Water Gap. The abandoned line cut across farmland, under mountains, and was in a way our rite into adolescence. The…
To Sir, with love 