relationships and community on Shortcuts

Everything in our society seems to convey the message of “now!” It’s almost as if we’ve entered an era where we have sacrificed the processing of knowledge for the gathering of data.

Give up the struggle and the fight; relax in the omnipotence of the Lord Jesus; look up into His lovely face and as you behold Him, He will transform you into His likeness. You do the beholding--He do...

What is the solution? I once asked the former head of a major Christian relief and development organization what he had learned in his decades of experience in the field of poverty alleviation. …he sa...

“Most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love,” writes John Steinbeck in East of Eden, a book full of characters who crave the love of a father, a brother, a lover, a son. The experience of fu...

The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plai...

These days, a common trick people use to remember someone they’ve just met is to save their first name along with the place where they met them—like “Matt PTA,” for example. I recently realized I stil...

Talk low, talk slow, and don’t say too much

Time talks. It speaks more plainly than words. The message it conveys comes through loud and clear. Because it is manipulated less consciously, it is subject to less distortion than the spoken languag...

Almost everything we do touches a relationship in some way. Just think about your day. Whether you’re at home or at work, driving your car, playing, exercising, shopping, vacationing, worshipping at c...

Digital connections . . . may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. Our networked life allows us to hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other.

Ikea: We throw in extra parts just to mess with you. Lays: Flavored Air Maybelline: Maybe it’s Photoshop Wikipedia: You’re Welcome, College Students Perrier: Rich People Water Bic: You Probably D...

When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.

Have you ever been in a store checkout line and you’re in a hurry and the person in front of you starts gabbing with the cashier? You’ve got a cart full of groceries, the ice cream’s going to melt, yo...

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

My friend Joi told me that when she was growing up, her parents invented a ploy to keep her from talking all of the time. They told her that people are allowed only so many words in one lifetime, and ...

Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest

Have you noticed how difficult it is to remember someone’s name when you meet them? Within seconds of a person telling me his name, I’ve forgotten what he said. I may have even repeated it to myself. ...

Giving jump starts our relationship with God. It opens our fists so we can receive what God has for us.

In our culture slow is a pejorative. When somebody has a low IQ, we dub him or her slow. When the service at a restaurant is lousy, we call it slow. When a movie is boring, again, we complain that it’...

"The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely."

In the last class I taught at Regent, an obviously irritated young woman came up to me and said, “Dr. Peterson, three times during your lecture you did not say anything for twenty seconds. I know beca...

[The Psalter] is an articulation of all the secrets of the human heart and the human community, all voiced out loud in speech and in song to God amidst the community.

The drug problems in the U.S. demonstrate this pattern: by heightening powers of perception, chemical stimulants open up a new world to a generation that has never learned to appreciate fully the worl...

Watson. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same.

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than w...

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.

Popularity? It's glory's small change.

Live to the point of tears.

In Essentials Unity; In Non-Essentials Liberty; In All Things Charity