My good friend and mentor, Charlie Kelley, passed away last week. I wrote about him in my last post knowing it was only a matter of days until he would move to his eternal home. And now, I no longer have a classic mentor…one who is one generation ahead of me, one who has seen...Read More

A few weeks ago, I received an unusual phone call from my dear friend and mentor, Charlie. Would I be willing to take over the mentoring of a young man he had befriended the past eight years? It was an extraordinary request, as I had never met the man. Blind date mentoring?  An arranged friendship?...Read More

My sister was going through some old pictures recently and found one I had apparently sent her years ago. She texted me the photo and I laughed when I saw it. It was me in 1976, on stage with a boy band…er…male quartet …I travelled the country with. The longer I looked at the pic...Read More

“Some of us wander from place to place, and many others of us don’t. We have the Somewhere people, who are very much of a place and rooted there, and we have the Anywhere people, who have a faint sense of belonging wherever they are and if they ever had a place, they left it...Read More

I was so scared of him that when I recognized his footfall coming down the stairs toward my office, I would lock the door, pull the shade, turn out the lights and hide. Did I mention I was a grown, 25-year-old man? It was my first full-time employment which, in many ways, I enjoyed. I...Read More

Human beings matter to me. They always have. Since the fall of 1972, much of my life has been focused on helping and guiding other human beings.  That was when the pastor of my church pulled me aside and encouraged me (twisted my arm?) to form a group of teenagers into a choir to perform...Read More

3 weeks ago, I asked these questions in my newsletter and blog post: Why are you here? What is it that gives your life meaning? What generates your sense of purpose? What voice nags at you to contribute to humanity or to the world? These are essential questions here at the two-year mark of this...Read More

I was not prepared for my transition. This, even though I saw it coming many months in advance. It didn’t sneak up on me. I certainly thought I was prepared for the change, my retirement from many decades of one type of work. I wasn’t. And neither are many of you as you face a...Read More

A few weeks ago I googled “books about life transitions”. It has been a year and a half since I began the biggest transition of my life, my retirement from 42 years of pastoral work. I, somewhat arrogantly, assumed I would simply turn out the light and close the door on one phase of my...Read More

I love strategic thinking and planning, especially when it’s all about me! I relish taking a personal retreat, carrying one of those huge post-it note flip charts with me. I enjoy spending several days dreaming about the future and crafting a plan to get there. The last time I did one of those personal planning...Read More