Calling & Limitations
Limitations don’t have to be losses; they can be the avenues to our flourishing. This is particularly true if we stay focused and creative within their boundaries, if we care for and cherish what’s inside them.
Good/Hard Living
Whether it’s the sand of Lake Michigan, the joy of the first snow, a bout of sadness, or another broken down appliance, we’ll hold all the tension, grief, and sorrow of these rough years, and we’ll look for the good. We’ll look back and acknowledge: yes, that was hard, but it was good, too. We see it in the eyes of one another and the fact that the sorrow itself points to a good that was lost.
Eyes to See
I used to believe that on Earth, most of us received an equal distribution of pain; we all had a comparable storm to endure. But after two storms in my first quarter of a century—my dad’s suicide and a seventeen-hour brain surgery—I started to wonder if maybe this wasn’t true. Maybe pain didn’t play fair.
Naming the Good
It is our choice, perhaps our duty even, to see this good and to call it by name. We must tell each other the story, from the grandiose themes to the name of the smallest beloved one, and in so doing we make manifest the story of hope that is within us all, and it is good.
Returning to El Matador
Whatever mountain you may need to climb up or valley you may need to descend into, you should do it. The path will likely be worn and steep but the precious time spent there will be well worth the journey.
We Are All Disabled
Solidarity is born when we agree to destigmatize inability and invite each other into the beautiful possibilities of interdependence.
The Good/Hard Life
When we choose to embrace the stories we’re living and release the stories we wished for, we can know in our deepest places that this good story is being written a God who can’t write any other kind of story.
Joyful Rebellion
What if we could see celebration as a form of worship—a necessary, life-giving acknowledgement of God's goodness?
Invisible Wheelchairs
Our limitations today are merely shadows of the ultimate limitation—death—which was exactly the limitation through which Jesus worked out our salvation. If Jesus can redefine death as the way to life, can we believe our pain can have a purpose.