In Gennesaret

They seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right. Ouch. Thus sayeth the Lord through Isaiah in chapter 58. He’s raking Israel over the coals for their false religion. They put on their righteous faces and do all the “right things”. In particular, here, fasting is the hot topic. “Why have we fasted and you have not seen it?” the people are asking. Why aren’t you paying attention to us when we’re such good, religious people? But the Lord lays to rest their righteous notions. They aren’t good people. “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen?” he asks. Just a day for you to look and act all humble and show off your righteousness? But in the same breath, you take advantage of people and quarrel and fight? You’re missing the point here, folks. THIS is what I have in mind for your “fasting”, he tells them: To loose the chains of injustice                And untie the cords of the yoke,...

Fourteen years ago, a couple of dudes who were frustrated at the cost of razors got this wild idea to start a business shipping monthly supplies of shaving products to men in their homes. They ended up selling the business five years later for a billion dollars. That's billion. With a "B". We love those stories, don’t we? The big risk that paid off. Netflix moving from DVD rentals to streaming services and shifting the paradigm entirely. The two Steves starting Apple in their garage – and then Apple changing the world with a phone that could browse the internet. But for every success story, you know there have to be dozens of failures – big risks that did NOT pay off. And probably a lot of them were great ideas! But for whatever reason, they just didn’t take off like the iphone and streaming and razors in your mailbox every month. I was reminded of this recently thinking of the adventures my youngest has had living in Atlanta. She has gotten involved with a few ventur...

Jonah was a pretty sorry excuse for a prophet, y’all. That man failed in so many ways. I mean, let’s take a look at that story in the Old Testament book that bears his name. From what we read there in the first few verses, I think it’s a safe assumption that Jonah was someone with a significant relationship with God – significant enough that God used him to speak to others because it is stated rather matter-of-factly that God told Jonah to go deliver a message to the Ninevites, as if this was not an unusual exchange between them. Apparently, the man was familiar enough with God’s voice to recognize it when he heard it. But he didn’t go. And it’s not like he just sat at home and ignored that familiar voice; he ran away . He purposefully moved in the opposition direction because, as he tells the Lord later, he didn’t want to give his enemies a chance to receive mercy from God. Thus the infamous fish story that you can read in chapters 1 and 2. Do you notice, by the way, that when J...

I’ve been considering for a couple days whether I should submit my latest play for publication. I have a couple of plays published already, which is kind of cool. They don’t get produced much, so I get very little income from that, unfortunately. I am happy that the scripts are out there getting used rather than sitting in silence on my laptop. But still – a bit more income would be very much appreciated right now. There is a fantastic playwright in Austin named Don Zolidis. I’m familiar with him because my theater won a prize at a conference a few years ago, and he wrote a play for us, which I ended up directing. He’s an amazing playwright. He has hundreds of plays out there that are very popular and performed all over the world. I follow him on Facebook, so I always hear about his latest publication and his many successes. And I get a bit jealous. I mean, the man deserves his success – he’s incredibly talented and works very hard. But you know, I think what I write is pretty goo...