I am a huge fan of eating together around the table. It’s one of the things I value most in this world. Eating around the table with people I love and respect does something to make me feel grounded and hopeful. It creates a structure in my routine and helps me feel connected to the…
I’ve written many times about how I sailed around the world after I graduated from high school on a literature ship. In my three years working with the Logos II I visited over forty countries and dozens of port cities. It was a formative time in my life that changed me forever. What I haven’t…
Love words. Love sentences with your whole heart. Love novels. Love books. Love the smell of books and bookstores. Read. If you don’t love to read, you’re probably trying to be a writer for the wrong reasons. Read everything. The good stuff teaches you to reach high, and the bad stuff makes you feel a…
The last month has passed in a whirlwind of excitement. Emma had a move-up ceremony in June at her new high school. Parents and grandparents gathered in the gym to watch as our kids marched in, sat down, and walked forward to receive a certificate that they had moved up and into high school. Emma…
I’m big on hope. I care about helping people foster and nurture the possibility of hope. Hope isn’t a feeling we can force. After living forty years on this little blue planet, I’ve realized we go through seasons when we have heaps of hope, when everything around the corner is overwhelming positive. But we also…
In July of 1998, I was living on board an international ship, sailing around the western hemisphere. My cabin mate was from Scotland, and most of my friends were from various European or Latin countries. I knew, theoretically, that Brazil was famous for soccer because some teacher had explained it to me in a world…
I am a writer and a Practicing Christian. From time to time I write on things in the news headlines that bother me. You can read a couple articles here, and here. Sometimes, I stay silent, suspending judgement because I’m not sure what I think. The past several weeks our nation has been in uproar due…
I’m going to Fuller seminary right now, one class at a time, and this summer, I’m taking NT 500. One of my assignments this week was to read the Gospel of Mark in one sitting. Mark is the shortest of the four gospels, the biographies or historical books about the life of Jesus. Most think…
A couple days ago I had a my-writing-life-is-a-failure kind of moment. It’s not actually a failure. But as an emotional writer, sometimes numbers get the better of me. There is this one word that makes my head spin. It’s the word many writers dread. It’s the word that feels like an endless blackhole. It’s the…
I have long appreciate almost everything Emily Freeman writes. I love how each quarter she takes stock of what she’s learned, and I thought I’d give it a try. June came and went in a huge blur, like a comet, but a beautiful one. Here are six things I learned: Eating dinner together, as a…
