“Draw what it feels like when you’re not able to write,” Amy told me.
“Do what?
“Just draw it. It can be whatever you want. I’m going to the restroom.”
She was trying to help me overcome my “writer’s block”. I stared at my pint glass, almost empty, before taking the last sip. There were dollar bills with people’s names, or football teams, or hometowns written on them, stapled to the walls and ceiling. A man sat down two stools to my left and asked the bartender how many were up there. I …

It’s raining outside, sheets of rain coming down, drowning everything. I’m reading verses about peace and comfort and a future, but none of it is making any sense today.
“My help comes from the Lord.”
“He will not allow your foot to slip.”
“The Lord will protect you from all evil.”
“I will make up to you for the years the swarming locusts have eaten.”
It’s all pretty frustrating right now.
I saw a woman the other day and it looked like she was having to blow through a tube to propel her wheelchair down …

A beat up truck pulled into the middle of the field in Afghanistan during half-time, and a man and woman, both blindfolded and screaming, were pushed out. Another man, holding a microphone, told the crowds watching from the stands the sins of the two prisoners. Before he finished speaking, the guards escorting the two picked up their stones. They hurled them at two faces, two backs, two chests.
The whole thing was hard to watch, really, even in a movie theater when you knew the people were actors. I glanced …

Every day is filled with opportunities to forgive. Somebody cuts us off in traffic, and we let it go, or raise a finger. A roommate TiVos over last week’s episode of Lost before we’ve seen it. We take a breath, or return the favor.
This is not about that.
Over the next few months I’ll be posting a series called “Forgiveness, or Lack Thereof”. The plan is to interview several people (a few known and a few I hope to meet) who have been forced to deal with a seemingly unforgivable wrong. …

I only have a handful of friends that are Christians, and about half of them are struggling with what that means. Most days, I am too.
One of these friends, a guy active in his church, confessed a few weeks ago that he doesn’t know if he still believes the stories in the Bible are true.
“I mean, you can believe they’re true, and you can live like they are, but there’s no way to really know they are.”
I talked about this with my friend Mandie when we had church at a …