Category: Awareness
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Awakening From Death to Life
Faith Though I’ve spoken at length I haven’t said a word And all this nothing that I’m saying Is nothing but absurd I speak with lies So that you might hear the truth I display for you illusion That you might have proof Do you know that this life, as most of us engage it,…
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The Comfort Paradox
The first time I heard the saying, “Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted”, it was in seminary. I heard it from a cohort leader who said it in a way that led me to believe that she made it up. She never said she made it up. But, that was her response, when I…
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Eye of the Be Holder
Have you ever seen a cygnet? A cygnet is a baby swan. And they are super cute. And yet, when we talk of people who blossom into a more physically beautiful being than one may have imagined, we say that they were an “ugly duckling”, based on the tale by that name created by Hans…
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To Be the New Me
Several posts ago, I wrote about how I sometimes hold myself back from shining my light. The excuse that I was using was that by holding myself back in some areas, I was somehow protecting the people who would otherwise try to hold me back. I’d hold myself back before they could try to. Yeah.…
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Pretending to Be You
There is this common idea in the world of appearances that is described as “faking it until you make it”. When I first heard that saying, it was disturbing to me. The way I interpreted it was that people should pretend to be someone others think they should be. This was something people advise people…
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Power Beyond Measure Part 4
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. — Marianne Williamson One day my dad called me out of nowhere and invited me to visit him in Mississippi. He said he wanted to talk to me and that it had…
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Being With God
God is the ground of being, being-itself; who concerns us ultimately. Thus, God is our ultimate concern. — Paul Tillich I’ll be honest with you and say that on a weekly if not daily basis, I find myself wondering what good I am doing as a pastor. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what I do or the people with…
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Mastering Your Greatest Weakness
“Your greatest weakness is your strength overdone.” — Some Wise Person Whose Name I can’t remember. In a recent post, I reflected a little on being an 8 on the Enneagram. In it I mentioned briefly about 8s despising weakness in themselves and others. What I didn’t get into was examples of that in my…
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The Journey and the Destination
If you google journey and destination quotes, you will likely come across plenty of words that express the idea that life is not about the destination but rather, it is about the journey. That wisdom sounds reasonable. Famed tennis legend Arthur Ashe said, “Success is about the journey and not the destination. The doing is…
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How 8 Thou Art (Reflections on My Enneagram#)
For about 6 years now, I have known that I am a type 8 on the Enneagram, what is often referred to as the Challenger/Protector. Even before I had a name and a number to describe some aspects of how I show up in the world, I was aware of many of the dimensions of…
The Roofless Church 