Posts by John Blase
You Just Never Know
I suppose I could take a StrengthsFinder test. But one of my strengths (ahem) is that I’m a contrarian, so I buck against that. Yet I have been noodling on my strong points lately, trying to line up a vision of dominoes, so to speak, for some things I’d like to do in the second…
Read MoreGood-bye
{A letter to our pastor as he leaves our congregation for another. “Shellie” died about a year ago.} Tyg, Of all the words about the spiritual life, or simply life for that matter, that I have witnessed to be true in my almost but not quite 52yrs now, these may be the truest. They come…
Read MoreNow That I Am Almost Old
newer things have littler appeal. Certainly I yearn to see where my children will fly and what my life will look like in the shadow of their wings. But it is the personal particulars of my past that seem to boldly buoy hope – Harrison’s poems I’ve read umpteen times, the fading photograph of our…
Read MoreThe Advent Letters
Mornin’, Lord. I’m sorry I haven’t written in a handful of days. What with wrapping up work, and the kids all coming in, and trying to multiply figurative loaves and fish to buy literal gifts for everyone, well, I got sorta scrambled. As your servant and my friend, Brennan, used to say: “these things happen.”…
Read MoreThe Advent Letters
Hi. It’s me again, Lord, We lit the second candle of Advent this morning at church. But you know that. I’m fairly sure that second candle represents some character or some theme of this season, but I can’t find a consensus and our pastors have veered a bit off-script this year, so I’m content to…
Read MoreThe Advent Letters
Well, Lord, It’s me again. I’m not sure what wisdom, if any, there is in writing you a letter because you knoweth all things, my sitting down and my rising up, my restless thoughts from afar. Still, I want to believe you enjoy hearing from me in this way because you made me a man…
Read MoreThe Coyote Get Up
I do CrossFit. That sentence is probably horribly grammatically incorrect, but I don’t care. I tell ya, grammar-correctors wear me slap out. One of the movements or exercises we did this week was something called a Turkish Get Up – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_zTytmHM94. The young buck in this video is handling a dumbell, but its often performed with…
Read MoreBright Mornings
Early winter storm on Sunday. That’s what the weather diviners pointed to all week, and today, on cue, they struck snow. I opened the blinds and immediately shivered at the sight of white. Early winter storm indeed, too early for me. There was the usual temptation to check social media, find out what’s going on…
Read MoreTime Gets Away From Us
“To redeem the lost.” That line occurs on the very first page of Patti Smith’s melancholic M Train as a reason for why we write. I underlined the phrase when I first read the book last fall. I was charmed by it again when I opened the book last night to begin a second trip on the…
Read MoreThis I Know
1. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. But what was sin at nine or ten? Sin something only grownups did. For Jesus, he loves the little children. “Suffer them to come.” In other words, green light. Refrain: Come and sit by my side if you love me. And…
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