Tag: Life
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Once a Pastor, Always a Pastor?
Whenever I describe myself as a former pastor, almost always, someone says, “once a pastor, always a pastor.” To which I usually respond with shrugged shoulders, and say something to the effect of, “I don’t know.” I’ve been trying to figure out what that statement means to folks––“once a pastor, always a pastor.“ Is that…
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A Miscarriage of the Nations: Where are the Founding Mothers?
“Women are the true architects of peace. Their strength, resilience, and wisdom have the power to transform societies and build a more peaceful world.” – Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, MBE, Founder and Executive Director of the International Civil Society Action Network. Yes. This title is provocative. But, we are in perilous times and sometimes you have…
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Being Is The Way (Greater Things)
In this message, I challenge us to consider that the greater things that are in us are easier done than said. All of life is waiting for us to be who we can be. Erich Fromm, social psychologist and author of To Have or To Be said: Our capacity to choose changes constantly with our…
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How Do We Live When Paradise Burns?
Just a week before the fires that devastated Lahaina, and ultimately Maui, all of Hawaii, and the world, I said goodbye to the banyan tree at the heart of that place that has become almost sacred to me. I literally spoke to it in my heart and thanked it for enduring as long as it…
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Introducing: The Communion Podcast – Episode 1 – Death
Death. Death has been tripping me out lately. On the one year anniversary of me stepping out of the pulpit, two people that I was close to at my former church died. One was in his 80s. The other in her 90s. But then today, I found out that a friend who was only 38…
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Faith: Acting Like You’ll Live Forever, But Being Willing To Die Today
Faith Though I’ve spoken at lengthI haven’t said a wordAnd all this nothing that I’m sayingIs nothing but absurdI speak with liesSo that you might hear the truthI display for you illusionThat you might have proof Do you know that this life, as most of us engage it, is mostly illusion? Yes. In fact, most…
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You Can’t Help Yourself
I grew up with a single mother who was friends with other single mothers. Several of them had their own businesses. I often heard them bashing men and saying things like, “I don’t need a man to be happy.” While ontologically true, many of them attempted to enter into relationships with men or other women…
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The Time to Shine is Always Now
The time to shine is always now. If people are surprised to see me rapping now, there’s more to the backstory you don’t know. A lot of people don’t know this. But my mom was basically a part of early hip hop. She used to be called JoSi, The Queen of Rhymes and she had…
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Giving Up a Dream to Receive a Vision
Dreams are overrated and not for everyone. In fact, after living a life where I have worked in almost every type of organization with almost every type of person, in numerous different cultures and backgrounds, I can affirm that for most of us, a dream for our lives is a distraction to living the reality…
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I Work For Your Organization. And You Can’t Stop Me.
In Mandarin there is a phrase that goes, 水涨船高 (shuǐzhǎngchuángāo)–literally water rise boat high–which basically comes down to the often expressed wisdom that we hear in American economics, “a rising tide lifts all boats”. A lot of people attribute the saying to John F. Kennedy. But it turns out he got it from his speechwriter,…
