Intersections

     Destruction. That’s what awaited Jonah as he walked into the town of Nineveh. Nobody wants to be the bearer of that news! But he’d recently been through a rather traumatic event, and so there was no turning back from the task that he was told to do by God. I don’t want to get too deep into it, but how many times in the last ten-odd years have we heard that “The end of the world is coming!” The biggest of which I remember happened in 2012 because of the Mayan calendars, along with other conspiracy theories that there would be a collision of Earth with another planet, aliens arriving, and a bunch of other nonsense. But people were caught up in it! We don’t want to be the last ones at the end of the world, do we? Just because someone has personal convictions doesn’t mean that they have proof to back them up, right - I mean - there were movies made about this, and it just added to the anxieties people feel toward ancient prophecies. We’ve lived through the Y2K sca...

    Introduction      Most of you know that my background has been in the legal field. I earned my bachelor’s degree in public affairs from IPFW, including political science, philosophy, and public policy classes. One of my classes was specifically in law & philosophy. At the time, I thought I was a hot shot, wanting to discuss what my books and classes were discussing. But now - not only can I not remember it, but I’ve also learned over the years… no one cares. This is unfortunate because we have so many laws; we should figure out why they exist. Right?        The Purpose of Laws      So - in my opinion, laws are made - whether they’re religious, natural, or legislated laws - really, what we’re doing here is regulating relationships, how things relate to one another. For example, a law on the books says it’s illegal to fish with your bare hands. Not sure how that one came about, but… it’s real. You may be wondering what ki...

  In our journey through the lectionary texts, it brings us to this passage in Isaiah, which I’m not sure if it would normally stand out on its own, but here we are.   We have brief words of thanksgiving from Isaiah, which seems appropriate today in all of our reflections we may be having about the year that was and the year we want to have. You may have had this week off of work, and are gearing up to return, and this week between Christmas and New Year’s is kind of time without structure, or liminal time. It just passes without any real organization.  I wish it had been like that for me this week. As some of you know, my uncle died on Christmas Eve. I was planning to spend this week with Ali & Aaron, but I also knew that I needed to make the journey to see my uncle’s funeral. So I caught a ride with my parents and off to Wisconsin we went.  But as I was traveling to a place where I had gone so many times as a child, lots of those memories came back. I had...

 Twelve years ago, I was reeling and recovering from my life implosion that happened only the previous year. I had been knocked down and to be honest, I was kind of bitter about it. I was angry that this is how my life was turning out. I knew I had to get out, make some new connections, friends, acquaintances - even. Fort Wayne was a very different place then. As much as we still had the Three Rivers Festival downtown, that was about the ONLY attraction, especially in the summer, that was going on and pulled people in from the suburbs and outlying regions to celebrate, or even to spend much time down there. If you would have gone downtown at any time after 5:00 on a weekday, you might have seen some misplaced tumbleweeds rolling down the street. Nothing was happening.  One thing that had started happening though, that there was a new young professionals group, called YLNI or Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana, who were under 40 and wanted to make Fort Wayne more palatable sinc...

     Experiencing a calling famously brings about the imagery of clouds opening and bright lights from the heavens proclaiming a change in someone’s life. As dramatic as that is, that was not my experience, and I’d like to think the overdramatic kind is more of an exception than the rule.     Well - let’s start with that - what IS a calling? You know, this was one of the hardest things to be able to narrow down. My research shows you how much of a nerd I am - defining a calling is so personal and unique that trying to have a generalized definition of it is like nailing jello to the wall.      But - in the interest of clarity, being called means that you are being set apart for a specific purpose; it can happen in any dimension of your life. For example, I knew I was called to marry my beautiful and kind wife, Tadjena. We were called to be parents to our two energetic children, Alison & Aaron. But a calling, most of the time, is for a hol...