We’ve just moved through the collective jet lag we call Daylight Saving Time, and we’re all adjusting to life in exhaustion-overdrive. We know it’ll all be okay in a few days, but the question remains: Why do we do this anyway? We’ve all heard that farmers benefit the most, and the electricity savings are huge, and …
How Daylight Saving Time & Reconciliation Are Related Read More »
There’s a sneaky saboteur that has the power to undermine our ability to make and keep relationships. It’s especially effective at thwarting reconciling relationships when the ground under our feet is never neutral. This saboteur operates in all of us, but few of us know how to disarm it. In this Reachable Reconciliation conversation, Rick and Fred …
Are you an other-centered listener or a self-centered listener? One approach leads to “rich soil” for conversation, connection, and reconciliation. The other undermines the safe environment others need to risk their vulnerability. In this Reachable Reconciliation conversation, Fred tells a surprising, unforgettable story about recalibration—and makes a crucial connection to the way Jesus seeded transformation in people…
Police brutality meted out on people of color is embedded in the video feed of our culture. Not even two weeks after honoring the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, our frozen reality dishonors his dream. During a traffic stop, 29-year-old Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by five members of a special …
The last five years have exposed deep divisions, some festering for decades, in American culture. Political, racial, and moral disputes have boiled over the boundaries of civility into shattered relationships, warring families, violence, and even threats to our democracy. And last week’s Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion rights debate …
Just before Memorial Day, in an act of protest, San Francisco Giants Manager Gabe Kapler said he would refuse to take the field for the national anthem to protest the nation’s “direction,” in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York. “Every time I place my hand over my heart and …
One big (and obvious) reason the divisiveness that set in during the pandemic seems like it’s here to stay: We don’t have the right tools to repair broken relationships. So many people in our churches have strained relationships and longing for restoration. But they simply don’t know what to do about it. In a difficult …
By Fred Oduyoye and Rick Lawrence The most mature people we know (spiritually and otherwise) have paid the price and made the sacrifice to grow past their good intentions. And, let’s not fool ourselves, our words are like the caboose on a train—what we say must always follow what we do, and our doing must overshadow our talking. This dynamic is …
By Fred Oduyoye and Rick Lawrence Ever tried to turn a screw with your fingernail? Or pound in a nail with the back of a hairbrush? Or cut a piece of wood with a serrated kitchen knife? Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. The fingernail and the hairbrush and the kitchen knife always lose those contests. Without the right tools, the …
By Fred Oduyoye and Rick Lawrence We are most like atheists when we are caught up in our reaction to something that angers or challenges or upsets us… Our reactions often exclude God—and important understandings of others—from our conversations. This is the primary reason we’ve become so divided in our culture. We have compartmentalized our reactions away from …
