Growing up in Terra Linda, CA in the 1950’s and 60’s, I had several best friends. I have had dreams about returning to visit these friends in the neighborhood where we grew up.Tom McCart lived down th...  Read More

A couple of months ago I received a text from a friend in Texas who was in a financial crisis. He had previously told me that he had personally guaranteed a real estate loan on a commercial project th...  Read More

I recently read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk. Musk has a vision to start a colony on Mars. He started Space X in order to make reusable rockets and a profitable company that will one day f...  Read More

My friend Bill Saleme sent me a baseball cap emblazoned with a message:PASTOR WARNINGAnything you say or do could be used in a sermonThe following story illustrates the truth on the cap.I unloaded the...  Read More

On a sunny Spring morning during the first COVID outbreak, I sat in our backyard marveling at the abundance of life in front of me. I watched hummingbirds flit around the feeders Kristina had hung fro...  Read More

Dilemma: a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones.A dilemma is what it means to be between a rock and a hard place. ...  Read More

Malcolm Gladwell has written several excellent books. One of my favorites is Outliers, in which Gladwell describes a close knit community of Italian-Americans who lived in Roseto, Pennsylvania. This c...  Read More

Kristina and I celebrated Mother’s Day this year at Talon Lodge, Kristina’s favorite place on earth. Talon is an eight-acre island two miles off the shore of Sitka, Alaska. The lodge and guest houses ...  Read More

I was in California recently to meet with pastors, get together with my brothers and sisters, attend a memorial service on Saturday and preach on Sunday. A month earlier, I had a similar schedule, inc...  Read More

I watch movies on TV and airplanes, but Jesus Revolution was my first trip to a theater since before the pandemic. It was well worth the visit.I had met four of the characters in the movie during the ...  Read More

In January, two men I admired in California died within 24 hours of each other. Jack Hayford, the pastor of Church on the Way, a Foursquare megachurch in Van Nuys, and Joe Garcia, my friend in Novato....  Read More

I was in a worship service at the San Rafael Open Door this past November, when Becky Riley walked up to the front to lead the congregation in prayer. Becky prayed boldly for the Lord to send rain to ...  Read More