Archive for the ‘Living’ Category

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Stuck in the Middle

November 14, 2025

“Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.”—Stealers Wheel

That lyric speaks to me on so many levels.

For today, I’m thinking of the middle. Our middle. The place where the heart and lungs reside. Our core (not in the Pilates sense).

My meditation teacher has us exploring the middle. 

We had been exploring breath by focusing on the sensation at the upper lip. The rhythmic cooling caused by the breath.

Now it is the lungs with the rhythmic rise and fall, and the rhythm of the heart.

My exploration of the core led to realization of Jesus’s concern for the status of the heart. Not at an intellectual level, which tends to divide mind and body, but at the core of our being. It is from that core that our following lives. And from that following come the action verbs we learned from Isaiah yesterday:

  • Cease to do evil,
  • Learn to do good,
  • Seek justice,
  • Correct oppression,
  • Bring justice to the fatherless,
  • Plead the widow’s cause.

These are things pleasing to his sight. Just as Paul wrote in the concluding chapters of the Letter to the Romans. Life doesn’t stop with realization of grace—it begins. That is new life. And then we live according to the new heart.

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Four Useful Tips For Living a Full Life

October 8, 2025

I’ve written about these tips for a few years. Axios Finish Line recently published these in a succinct format. Check them out. Where are you on top of it? Where can you improve?

These four steps — all available for free — will help you thrive, personally and professionally:

🤖 AI yourself. Starting today, learn how to use ChatGPT, Grok or any free or premium LLM to optimize your personal obligations and professional work. AI will make you exponentially more efficient and more capable. Soon, AI inequality — the gap between proficient AI users and the rest — will be the defining characteristic of success vs. struggle at work, especially for those newly entering the workforce. Replace social media or gaming time with AI practice. It’s more fun and useful.

🧠 Bionicize your brain. Social media algorithms are controlling more and more of our brains, often pumping nonsense or anxiety into them. Few of us are powerful enough to resist the algorithmic addictiveness. But, if you unplug your brain from social media and fill it instead with high-quality information — available via podcasts, books, YouTube, Axios, Substack and more — you’ll flourish.

🥦 Optimize you. Almost every expert who studies any dimension of mental and physical health comes to the exact same conclusions. So listen to them. Eat real, healthy, protein-packed foods. Purge fake and ultra-processed garbage. Exercise daily, even if it’s just a walk. Lift some weights. Sleep 7+ hours. Make and keep real, human friendships. Minimize booze and screen time. Do all of this, all free, and you’ll be in the top 5% for setting yourself up to lengthen your healthspan.

😇 Be moral. Another free, easy, life-changing hack: Take the time to read, listen to, and think about values you want to live by. What are your personal red lines about how you treat yourself and others? That is your compass, your morality. Set it, or you’ll get lost. Read, pray, meditate, study those you admire. Form your own personal moral structure — then reinforce it, and lean on it when tough times hit.

Posted in Disciplines, Habits, Living | Leave a Comment »

Change Your Behavior

September 25, 2025

You can study scripture as diligently as possible, but if it doesn’t change your behavior, then you have wasted your time.

Posted in Living, Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

New Life in Christ, Spiritual Formation Part 6

September 5, 2025

What happens after God declares you righteous? 

Several people in a Bible study class I led were fixated on “the decision.” Just say you believe in Jesus, and that’s it. 

Me, being me, asked, “What comes next?”

Blank stares greeted my question.

Paul answers that question specifically in this letter in chapters 12-15:13. Paul lays out a story or picture of what someone living in grace acts like.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

John Wesley thought on these things. He described this as a manifestation of living in God’s grace.

Sanctifying Grace – This grace works in believers after justification to gradually transform them into the likeness of Christ. Wesley emphasized that this is an ongoing process of spiritual growth and moral purification that continues throughout the Christian life.

Let us think on this outline. Think about how much of it sounds like Jesus. I am amazed at how much Paul writes that sounds just like Jesus.

  • Living sacrifice
  • Genuine love
  • Hate evil
  • Love one another, etc.
  • Subject to authorities
  • Love your neighbor
  • Don’t judge
  • Don’t make another stumble
  • Please others before yourself
  • Jews & Gentiles (again)

Reading these thoughts periodically will refresh us and restore us to a proper way of life. We can try living in the spirit.

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Finding Your Rhythm

February 4, 2025

[After some experimenting and searching for a good tool, I began writing to the web—blogging—in December 2003. I started this blog in 2012 initially as a church project. Between the two, I’ve now posted 7,000 articles.]

I was perhaps 7 or maybe 8 when dad took me in a car to the house of a guy who had been a percussionist with the Air Force Band. I became a percussionist.

With percussion, it’s all about rhythm.

Perhaps our lifestyle has a rhythm. Our body definitely has a rhythm. Can you feel when yours is out of rhythm? I certainly can.

Same with my daily life. Meditating, writing, working out, eating, reading, socializing. I created a rhythm and need that rhythm so that all remains in sync.

When life circumstances intervene, the best actions we can take is to grab hold of our rhythms and try to return to them.

Have you thought about the rhythms of your life? Daily, weekly, monthly? Do they need tweaking? Perhaps a total makeover?

Each stage of life has its own rhythm. Have you adjusted your rhythms to your new circumstances?

The beat goes on—Sonny and Cher.

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I Haven’t Learned That Yet

January 23, 2025

I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working, by Shauna Niequist.

How does one deal with the crash and burn of a famous father’s career (dragging down theirs)j along with the body beginning to act in strange and mysterious ways? Add a physical move to a completely different environment and way of life.

Shauna Niequist (NEE-kwist) blends fifty vignettes into a book that explores how she coped with the grief of sudden upheaval of life.

This is an excellent book club read for those groups not too timid to discuss dealing with painful real life.

Maybe you or someone you know currently deals with some shock of life and the resultant emotions and physical reactions. Don’t offer advice or ignore them. Buy this book and simply hand it to them. It would be like giving them a friend to walk along with them on the journey.

But the writing contains neither hopeless nor despair.

Oh, how do you deal with it? One day at a time. Seek out some joy—walking, cooking, gathering with friends over food and wine and conversation. Find a good therapist. In a weird way, it’s a celebration of life over pain.

Posted in Compassion, Faith, Friends, Living | Leave a Comment »

Small Changes You Can Keep

December 19, 2024

We’ve all seen diets come and go, but the truth about weight loss is simple: it’s not about finding the “perfect” plan; it’s about making small changes you can keep — and eating foods that keep you fuller for longer.

The same is true in our spiritual life. Some people wait for a Great Spiritual Awakening to spring suddenly upon them. Others slide through life wonder if there is a better way.

But, small changes that you can keep—five minutes daily reading from the gospels, five minutes daily in meditation. These add up to a richer spiritual life.

Posted in Attitude, Habits, Living | Leave a Comment »

Is There Life Before Death?

December 11, 2024

Pause. Contemplate your time on Earth so far.

Have you been truly alive?

Does the sun warm you to the bone?

Does the movement of wind against your face make you wonder where it’s been and where it’s going?

Do you delight in the touch of another human?

When the spirit of God makes its presence felt within your heart, do you bask in the deep joy and peace it brings?

When someone speaks, do you listen.

Speaking American English, we say hello, and it is merely a greeting. In many languages, the word of greeting connotes a meaning much like, “My soul reaches out to touch your soul.” Our overly rational culture misses out on the richness of being.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to try life.

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Virtue

October 31, 2024

The last post discussed people of virtue avoiding sin because it was just the way they lived.

Let us take a look at the Stoics. One of the leading Stoic philosophers, Seneca, wrote essays that sounded so much like Paul that later Christian thinkers thought he was Christian. It’s unlikely that he ever heard of Jesus.

That doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them. Ryan Holliday, today’s leading exponent of Stoic philosophy, writes, “Virtue to them was a way of life. It was pivotal, essential, irreplaceable. It wasn’t something you talked about, it was something you did. Aristotle said that we acquire the virtues the same way we acquire any skill—a carpenter builds, a flutist plays, a runner runs.”

Similarly, a follower of Jesus follows. We don’t go around pointing to other people’s faults instructing them with platitudes. We participate in a way of living involving prayer, meditation, study, service. And virtue.

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How Do You Know a Christian?

September 10, 2024

How do you know a Christian? Is there a way to tell who is and who isn’t? Do you quiz them on their beliefs to see how well they line up with the Nicene Creed? Do you ask them if they’ve invited Jesus into their hearts? One answer is to check their behavior. If becoming united to Christ changes us, then one should expect to see those changes lived out in everyday life. A number of the Church Fathers suggested a test like this one, though the specific change they were looking for may come as a surprise.—Cody Cook

The early church grew in spurts when the people around them said, “I want what they’ve got.” How is it going for you?

Posted in Doing, Living | Leave a Comment »

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