Celebration
Back in July, I complained on Twitter that a bunch of teenagers had descended on my quiet Iona hotel. A friend replied, in jest, "Well, Iona is kinda a party place, right?" Religious pilgrimage destinations aren't typically known for their wild celebrations, but celebration was a common theme among places I visited in the . . .
Hospitality
Over these next few posts I'm hoping to share a few themes and practices I learned during this summer. These are my best attempts to distill all of my summer experiences and learnings into a few basic things to do.
Most think of the monastic world as remote and secluded, and in one way it is. What is surprising, though, is . . .
One Week Back
It's really over.
I've been back at work for a week now. The transition really wasn't a big deal. With good leadership at the church while I was away, there were no fires for me to put out in my return. I'm surprised too with how quickly I found my old rhythms again. The established routines for the workweek were right there waiting for me, . . .
It's Over.
It's the last day. Tomorrow I'm back in the office. I've had three months of extraordinary experiences, and tomorrow I'll continue my extraordinary adventures while I'm back to the daily living of work around here.
I had a little drama here at the end. After a couple wonderful days in Kansas City I was at . . .
The Summer of Jason
There's less than a week left. My sabbatical of three months is almost over. After Labor Day I am back to work. I started planning and hoping for this time two or three years ago, and I've done it, and it's almost over. When this summer started I remembered a clip from the television show, Seinfeld, where George Costanza . . .
The Megachurch
What a smaller church pastor thinks after visiting some really big churches.
Outside of Buffalo, New York, where I used to live, is a big box church that resembles a very large cinema megaplex from the outside. I'd never gone inside, but I knew some about the church and what happened there. One summer day I was walking through an outdoor art festival, and I saw some artists I knew. We started talking, and one of . . .
St. Meinrad Archabbey
I'm down in the southern end of Indiana for a few days for a retreat at St. Meinrad Archabbey. In the middle of the country here west of Louisville is something you'd never expect to find: a European-looking monastery rising up out of the corn fields. It is something to see it at first, this big place set up on a hill; it almost . . .