Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Everything Becoming

Home
General Christian

Spiritual Formation

Select a Category Disciplines Prayer Reading Spiritual Formation Spirituality of Writers Uncategorized Wisdom Writing

Select a Month October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018

September 2019

September 24, 2019

Finding “Slow” in a Bar at 7 AM

Growing up in the south, I learned the finer art of slow. Of course I...

September 20, 2019

Three Prayers Of the Restless & Scattered

A few years back, I completed a doctoral project on the topic of prayer (specifically...

September 13, 2019

Is Pain a Window or a Mirror?

What we do with our pain is in fact one of the most significant things...

September 07, 2019

What Happens In the Empty Space

Have you ever walked into a space – an empty, quiet space, or even a...

August 2019

August 30, 2019

Just Stop Trying

Organization has never been my thing. I know many people who can say this, and...

August 27, 2019

Why “Yes” Means “No”

I have a habit that requires I make a very costly decision. Actually, it requires...

August 18, 2019

When God is Unnecessary

Parancanthurus hepatus. The surgeon fish, or the royal blue tang, or the regal tang. Pick any name...

August 12, 2019

The Devil of LA and the Power of Our Desires

My wife and I are catching up on the series Lucifer, once on network TV...

August 11, 2019

You Can’t Leave the Past Behind

The sun came up, gently, again this morning. Surprisingly I have memories of the same...

August 03, 2019

When Our Grass Is In Order

I can hear my wife chuckle before the words are even out of my mouth....

July 2019

July 29, 2019

Which God Are You Becoming?

As a parent of a pre-teen, I’m constantly unearthing pithy and extremely unhelpful phrases. These...

July 22, 2019

Why Spiritual Formation Is Political

I've heard several very good spiritual conversations end in the exact same way. With the...

July 19, 2019

3 Spiritually Healthy Ways to Return From Vacation

I’ve just returned home from a few days of vacation. For the last 19 years...

July 05, 2019

What If Jesus Wants You To Fall In Love?

I decided to do a quick Google search for the phrase “fall in love.” The...

June 2019

June 27, 2019

A Twitter Exchange And How Spiritual Formation Will Save the World

Let me say that again, differently: the wisdom of spiritual formation will save the world. This...

June 25, 2019

3 Things to Remember This Week

The week technically began yesterday (Monday), but if you’re like me it takes a day...

June 19, 2019

What Gives You Life?

What gives you life? The lesson I have learned in the past 2-3 years is...

June 14, 2019

When Coffee Mugs Are Sacred

On any given morning in my house, you'll find one of the mugs pictured here...

June 10, 2019

King David, David Lynch, and a Dragon Walk Into A Bar

Ok, so that was a wild title. It's just a reading list. But the title...

June 06, 2019

We Become the Stories We Tell

The first big step in my spiritual formation came in a small church in southern...

May 2019

May 30, 2019

When We Get Stuck (We Should Stay There)

If we feel stuck right now, perhaps we should stay there? The life of faith...

May 22, 2019

Two Books For Learning to Love With Our Thinking

Faith isn’t opposed to thinking, nor is our formation. I’ve always been interested in how...

May 20, 2019

A Practice of Sleep (For Restless People)

Sleep ended for me this morning at 4am. It wasn't an accident, either. In fact,...

May 19, 2019

Friends Are Good for Our Souls (Is Friendship A Sacrament?)

March 2019 marked a year since my family and I returned to the south suburbs...

May 14, 2019

On Reading the Bible Literally (And Do Stop Signs Mean “Stop”?)

This is the story of a stop sign and Scripture. A literal stop sign in...

May 10, 2019

Wisdom Is For Losers

So what is wisdom comes first to losers? I looked in the mirror a...

May 04, 2019

The Case of Henri Nouwen, Rachel Held Evans, and Vincent Van Gogh

My reading list has been slim as of late, for a variety of reasons. When...

April 2019

April 30, 2019

Random Thoughts on Knowledge, Wisdom, and John 8

Wisdom has a way of moving us. For much of our life, we are invested...

April 26, 2019

Squeaking Ducks And The Wisdom of Noticing

This week I had the privilege of working outside on our porch, a chance to...

April 18, 2019

It Snowed On Palm Sunday (and other mysteries)

Mystery: it snowed on Palm Sunday. Or, not a mystery if you're familiar with Chicago...