Early in the morning I’m getting on a plane for Austin, Texas to go and both say goodbye to and celebrate the life of my friend David Gentiles. I fly back to Durham early Thursday. As I was trying to find words for my final post of the year (since I don’t imagine getting to…

I’ve been trying to keep up with the news around the Nigerian man who tried to light some type of explosive on a plane landing in Detroit on Christmas Day. I’ve been trying to keep up mostly because I’m getting on a flight to Austin on Wednesday to go to the memorial service for my…

Even though I went back to work on the second day of Christmas, I’ve been thinking more about what Christmastide means. Once we get to the manger, it seems, we find it hard to stay for very long. As far as the culture goes, our economy can’t afford for us to have too long of…

It was some time after seminarymy best friend, Burt, got married,and then a few more years beforethey had a child. I remembercalling one day; he answered,saying he was lying on the bedlooking at the baby. I asked,“Do you ever look down and say,‘You’re going to stay here?’” Something about this day after,this morning beyond the…

I noticed tonight, as we were singing carols in our Christmas Eve service, that our hymnal has five verses to “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” my favorite carol. I find deep comfort in what I have known as the third verse, which I know has been quoted more than once here: and you beneath…

If you want to be in power,you have to have money;if you want to be invited,you have to be somebody;if you want to be in charge,you had better be rich;if you want to be noticed,you’d better know somebody.That’s the way of this world:this tiny planet, tucked awayin a fold of the universe,not the best or…

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. (Luke 2:6 KJV) I first learned the story the same wayLinus told it: in language so oldthat some of the words had been lostor forgotten, others changed. No one says, “the days were accomplished”anymore, unless you’re Linus…

I managed to avoid the mall this season until today. I had to go because that’s where the stuff I needed was being kept (Ginger and Jay were going, too), so, as long as we were going, we decided at least part of the afternoon should be spent at the movies; we saw Invictus. Put…

It’s late, the dinner shift was busy, and I am missing my friend David. I’ve turned to music we shared together, particularly Mark Heard and Pierce Pettis. One of Pierce’s songs, “I’ve Got a Hope,” keeps circling around. I tried to find it on YouTube to no avail, but here is the lyric. It comes…

Last night our little town of Durham lay in the path of a winter storm working it’s way up the East Coast and we got enough snow to make it feel real. Once the ground was covered, I walked out into the street to take a picture of our house with lights aglow. Because the…