Blessed Are The Peacemakers

Lichtkind (Child of Light), 1972 Silver print with grattage by Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein. Helnwein’s work frequently explores childhood, vulnerability, injury and the resilience of the child. The Girl Who Sang at High Noon There was once a little girl who sang at noon. Not at night, when songs belong to dreams and darkness can hide the face of the singer. Not in the blue hour of morning, when the world is still half-dreaming. At noon. When the sun stood directly overhead and even the shadows gathered themselves small beneath her feet. She carried a melody that belonged only to her. No one had taught it to her. She could not remember learning it. It seemed to have arrived with her, stitched somehow into the small body she inhabited, as natural as breath and nearly as necessary. When she was very young, she assumed everyone had one. So she sang. She sang while she played and while she wandered. She sang when she was delighted and when she was afraid. Sometimes the tun...

  What Is Mine To Do? There's a conversation taking place among a number of people I know, and since it's clearly on a lot of minds, I thought I'd throw my own thoughts into the mix. They'll probably be unpopular. At this point, that hardly seems worth mentioning. 🤠 The interesting thing is that not too long ago I likely would have been on the other side of this discussion. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm right now or that I was wrong then. It simply means life has a way of changing the questions we ask, and I've found myself asking some very different ones lately. For years, whenever I encountered another frightening story, alleged conspiracy, another hidden evil, my first question was generally:  Is this true? I wanted to understand the world. I wanted to protect people. I wanted to know who could be trusted . Looking back, I don't think I was chasing darkness because I loved darkness. I think I genuinely believed I ...

  The Runner Who Couldn't Run Over the past few days, I've found myself revisiting an old song. Be Not Always is a haunting lamentation written from a place of global grief. Born out of watching war, poverty and the suffering of children across the world, it pleads for the pain to stop. It mourns humanity's strange habit of believing that if we simply wait long enough, somehow things will get better. Its a heavy, sweeping song, but one line detached itself from the weight of the world and settled onto mine. “Time has made promises.... just promises.” Michael was singing about history, about the cruel illusion that humanity naturally heals with time. But sitting in the silence of my own home, listening to my body fail me, I realized the lie of time isn't only a global tragedy. It's a deeply personal one. I wasn't grieving the world. I was grieving every tomorrow I had counted on: the healthier version of myself I assumed I'd...

    Indigo Feather, Golden Thread The air in the Meadow of Beginnings tasted of spun sugar and crushed mint. Here, the grass did not simply grow, it hummed an amber melody that kept time with the turning of the cosmos. Wildflowers opened and closed with the breathing of distant galaxies, and the sky shimmered with colors that had not yet been given names. Boy and Girl sat together upon a hill of violet moss, watching a pair of celestial weavers thread ribbons of silver starlight through the great looms of heaven. They had awakened together here more times than stars could count. Every beginning felt strangely familiar. Every ending felt like a promise. Yet if they reached for the memories they slipped through their fingers like morning dew. Sometimes, when the wind drifted in from the east, Boy felt phantom roots tugging gently at his heels, as though he had once stood as an ancient oak, patient beneath countless seasons, learning the slow grammar of the earth. ...

I've laid the plans,  Now lay the chance, Here in my hands. If I ever need to open the floodgates and let myself sob, there are only a small handful of things in my toolbox that can get me there. One of them, ever since I was a teenager, has been Whitney Houston's One Moment in Time Oddly enough, it isn't the song by itself that moves me. I listened to it recently without the video and realized something was missing. I needed to see the images. The athletes. The Olympics. The competition. Watching people pour years of sacrifice into a few brief moments. Some win gold. Some win silver. Some don't place at all. Yet every one of them has given something extraordinary just to stand on that stage. It's the marriage of those images with the song that gives it its full emotional weight. Something about that raw display of human effort, determination and endurance moves me every single time. I actually avoid watching it too often because I'm afraid I'll beco...

  The Stewardship of Women and the Nature of Authority I've found myself returning to a question that seems to surface repeatedly throughout scripture, history and even our own day. What happens when God gives His people authority? At first, it seems like an odd question. We usually concern ourselves with what authority has been given, who possesses it and how it ought to be exercised. But the longer I sit with the scriptures, the more I wonder if God is asking a different question altogether. The greater question may not be whether we can exercise authority but whether we can refrain from exercising authority He has not given. That may be one of the central lessons. Again and again, the Lord entrusts His people with stewardships. Parents receive stewardships. Elders receive stewardships. Judges receive stewardships. Women receive stewardships. Communities receive stewardships. Rarely does He assign the whole burden to one person or one office. Instead, responsibiliti...