Category Archives: boundary leaders
Championship Spirit
You can no longer watch championship basketball in North Carolina because of a political train wreck involving sex, bathrooms and religion. In spite of some of those same politics, this is a great place to watch something more important, a championship … Continue reading
Runaway heart
My daughter Lauren is about to give birth to my second grandson, which, with her sense of dramatic timing will probably happen on Mothers’ Day. This also kicks off Nurses’ Week in hospitals. My wife and my (now former) first … Continue reading
Mainsail
Perhaps you’ve met a human. You have noticed that we can be hard to help. Perhaps you’ve been to a planet like Earth and noticed the same thing, except 7 billion different ways. How do you help something with 7 … Continue reading
Carolina tears
Hearts break today in North Carolina. I think of atheists as slightly over-educated modernists who are harmless, almost quaint, in their ardent non-belief. It had not occurred to me that non-believers were inclined to shoot people over parking slots. But … Continue reading
City of Light
Every religion is dangerous. Like fire, wind and water, religion is a fundamental element of human life that can drown, blast and burn. Religion guides our fear and frames our shame. And it can also strengthen our capacity for the … Continue reading
New blade
I peered through a hole in our basement wall into a cloud of sawdust where my father fed a piece of wood into the spinning blade. The sound was painfully high loud and powerful, such that I can still hear … Continue reading
Pompless patriotism
Jefferson, the pompless patriot, would have approved. Thanks to the Daily Beast and my brother Ron who forwarded their article, I learned that exactly 1,003 steps from my home near the Square in Salem, the Moravians had created the very first … Continue reading
Warren, Kenny and Barney
Fred Smith is a Harvard-SMU-Emory PhD and United Methodist preacher. He grew up tough in Oakland playing football. When he and I were walking around Jack London Square Thursday night after a nerve-fraying couple of days, we went looking for … Continue reading
Sin and Liberation
Didn’t expect that title did you? There is something about Good Friday coming in the same week as a day-long medical center budget meeting that turns my mind toward sin; and then, just when you least expect it, toward liberation. Tom Peterson … Continue reading
Mapping Curiosity
These are such interesting days for hopeful people in our wildly dynamic world. Never before in the history of the species have we seen more radical emergence of vast numbers and forms of relational webs. More than two million non-governmental … Continue reading