In Gennesaret

Between travels and my busy schedule recently, I haven’t been able to get to the gym for my exercise classes. So, this weekend, I made a point of forcing myself out of the house a couple times a day to walk the wooded paths nearby – I need the exercise, the fresh air, the vitamin D, and the break from my computer screen. And as I hiked, I was inspired again by the trees. I’ve written about the trees on these trails, I’m sure. They are SO lovely. I suspect if you flew in a helicopter above this area, you would see a sea of green – healthy, leafy branches reaching to the sun for nourishment. But the view from below is quite different. From below, you have to strain a bit to see the green growth at the top. What you are surrounded by from below are the old dead branches. See the picture here? Imagine trees growing to two or three times this size and surrounding you as you walk. They are beautiful and cozy . . . and thought-provoking. Y’all, these trees. They are us . We all have...

I had the most disturbing dream last week. I was stopping for something at my theater (although the building wasn’t really my theater, even though in my dream it was supposed to be my theater – you know how that is), and there was a gang of thuggish-looking punks hanging out on the front lawn. They seemed to be ignoring me, so I went in and out a few times doing whatever it was I needed to do. But on my final trip outside, I saw that the gang was gone – as was my car with my purse and phone inside. I can’t find a word strong enough to describe my feelings in that moment. That may seem silly; it was just a dream. But oh, people . . .  The panic – the complete, utter panic . I couldn’t call anyone for help; I didn’t have my phone. And even if I went to a business and borrowed a phone, I couldn’t remember anyone’s number – they are all saved on my phone. I couldn’t get home; I didn’t have a car, I didn’t have a phone to call a friend or an Uber, and I had no credit card to pay ...

I just heard a story about Einstein. Apparently, when he was walking home from work, he would so often get completely lost in thought and walk by his house altogether that his wife started standing outside to watch for him. In fact, one time, the police had to bring him home. I find this SO comforting. Because the man was a genius, y’all. He changed the world. And he still did silly things like that. It is the grace of God that I get from one place to another in my car every day without incident. It’s become a conditioned response, I believe: like Pavlov’s dog salivating at the ringing of a bell, when I get in the seat of my car and turn the key, my brain automatically begins to travel to distant lands. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I’m mostly thinking about what I need to do today . . . and who I need to talk to . . . and plotting out those conversations . . . and remembering other things to mention when I talk to them . . . like the season finale of Severance last...

I’m not always sure what to do with the apostle Paul. The man had some chutzpah. Example? Acts 16, which I was listening to the other evening. After he and Silas sang in prison all night and then were told they could leave, he got a bit uppity. “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out .” Well , then. It reminded me of when he was annoyed at people in the Galatian church wrongly insisting that gentile converts needed to be circumcised. “As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” I mean, dude . . . After reading the scripture lesson in Sunday School yesterday morning (the end of Philippians 3), our teachers paused to ask if we had any initial reaction to the passage. And my reaction? Paul sounds arrogant. Maybe the original tone and intent doesn’t come across well in our translations, bu...

Thursday morning was foggy here in my neighborhood. Seriously foggy. Very possibly the foggiest weather I’ve ever experienced. When I pulled out of my garage at 7am for the 25-minute drive to school, I could hardly see my garage door closing from the end of the driveway. It was kinda scary, frankly. I drove slowly and carefully through my neighborhood and along the side roads I use to avoid the 1604/I-10 interchange that is crazy busy at that time of the morning. And then suddenly, just as I pulled up to a red light before driving under I-10 . . . there was no fog. None. It was just GONE. I could see the stoplight, the cloudy sky above me, and the shopping center on the other side of the highway in front of me. It was a bit of a jolt to suddenly have the world visible around me again. I turned and pulled onto I-10 going north, still in wonder at it all. Along the way to Boerne, a few small patches of fog flew in and out. I continued to drive cautiously, as did everyone around me,...

I’ve been hearing recently about a new trend: sober vacations. People are intentionally planning trips that are devoid of any alcoholic content. Whole industries are growing around this concept – travel agencies, resorts, cruises. This apparently follows on the heels of other similar trends – namely, Sober October and Dry January. It seems that the former began in the U.K. as a fundraiser for cancer research. On the other hand, Dry January just sounds like a health thing. Try not drinking any alcohol for a month and see what the health benefits are. And people found the benefits were plentiful and started telling everyone about it. And my reaction was, Uhhh . . . what? Is this really news? ALL my months are dry and sober -- at least most of them. I very rarely drink alcohol. Mainly because nobody drank in my house growing up, and my college roommate abstained because of her alcoholic father (and I hung with her in support), so I just never developed a real taste for the stuff – an...

I know a bit of Spanish. Un poquito. So when I volunteered to tutor a young Mexican lady in English a couple decades ago, I wasn’t sure how well that was going to go. But it did go well – mainly because Blanca was bright and motivated. For our second lesson, we met at a grocery store. With a notebook in hand, she pointed at things, and I named each item in English. She learned far more on her own than she did from me; I was merely an available person for intentional conversation. And for the answering of questions . . . like this question that she asked me one day: “What means, ‘Ado tiso?’” Ado tiso . . . hmm . . . I asked her to give me a situation where she heard this phrase. She described a couple scenarios and repeated the phrase with a strong lilt, trying to mimic the people she heard. “Ah-doh TEE-so!” I was genuinely puzzled for quite a while. But then it hit me. She was trying to say, “I don’t think so.” That became an inside joke in my home for quite a while. “Can I h...