The Glowing Scroll

Here's the best description I've read yet of the Lighthouse Ranch, where I spent my infancy as a Christian believer—complete with a cast of original characters, who are all my friends. By Heidi Walters of the North Coast Journal: The Light on the Bluff Photo by Gary Todoroff

So, I visited Centinela Prison last weekend with the Faith Community Prison Ministry team. It was a bittersweet trip, as I had been hoping to attend a reunion in the mountains that weekend with a bunch of old friends from the Jesus Movement. But then I realized I had a scheduling conflict. I had to go with my first commitment. It's a three-hour drive from Ontario to the depths of the Imperial Valley (depths, literally—it's 50 feet below sea level). From the bleak, dry squalor of the lower desert I could look up directly to the west and see the verdant 6,000-foot peaks of the Laguna Mountains, where the reunion was happening. Oh well. As it turned out, the prisoners turned the tables on us. We went there to minister, and we did: Janetta shared her incredible testimony of how God enabled her to get a kidney transplant against all odds. And Javier talked about his former life as an inmate, gang member and addict—and how God delivered him. And of course, there was music. ...

A few years ago I bought my wife a tortoise as a gift. Why? A fit of madness, I guess. Predictably, I wound up being the caretaker of this reptile, which will now be a burden to my family for the next 100 years or so. Anyway, I began to absorb some lessons about how God relates to us from this phlegmatic little creature, which my wife named Lulu. Lulu is inherently vulnerable, being small, docile, and extremely slow. Her only defense from predators is to retreat into her shell at the first hint of a threat. Sudden movement, noise, even a change in light will provoke this reflex. This makes her hard to approach. So instead of trying to come close to her , I’ve learned to pick her up from the back and bring her close to me . Somehow, this doesn’t provoke the defensive response: Suddenly I’m in her face, but she’s not freaking out. God has often done a similar thing with me; I wasn’t seeking Him and didn’t see Him coming, but He moved me around without my knowledge till suddenly the...

Once I went on Google Earth and tried to find the place where I used to live in the woods of northern California. My old digs weren’t near any major cities or landmarks, so I found myself scrolling over endless miles of nondescript wilderness on the computer screen. I couldn’t find it, and finally gave up. It was a lot like the dreams I have, where I’m flying over miles of terrain at night, searching for something or someone, though it’s never quite clear. Usually my dreams are little dramas that involve me trying to accomplish something, and feeling frustration and angst over not being able to get it done. In other words, they’re a commentary on my life. I think dreams are always about something. Don’t you?

Most of us think we are. But when someone is sharing from the heart, it's hard to resist a few things that can make us bad listeners: Talking over the other person Offering solutions Replying with our own experiences That last one is especially tempting. I indulged in it just yesterday. Probably will again. But nothing can make a person shut down more quickly than sharing about their upcoming cancer surgery and hearing, "Oh, I know! Last year I had surgery on my elbow. I couldn't write for two weeks ..." etc. Meanwhile, you're so involved in your own story that you didn't notice the other person quietly walking away. The classic complaint from women (usually towards their men) is, "I just want to be heard." What does that look like? I was talking (and listening) with my wife last night, and she put it this way: "We just want someone to be watching for the ball—and to catch it. Then, at some other time, they can throw—and we...

By coincidence (or maybe not), I'm reading two books right now about the church: one by a Presbyterian minister who converted to Catholicism, and one by an apostle of the current house church movement. They present two diametrically opposed views of what the church ought to look like. From the Kirk to the Catholic Church was written by Henry Graham in 1911. It describes in agonizing detail his journey from the Presbyterian kirk (church) of his youth in Scotland to his calling as a Catholic priest. That's quite a jump, and it was violent in many ways; he had to disavow the stern Protestant biases he had grown up with, and interrupt a proud family tradition of producing Presbyterian ministers generation after generation. He found himself enchanted by the beautiful aspects of Catholicism: its stately rituals, inspirational art and architecture, and the simple devotion of its adherents. But he was most attracted to the idea of the Catholic Church: One authority extending t...