When you marvel at the beauty of an autumn tree seemingly on fire with vivid oranges and yellows spread against the blue sky, there is no thought of the unseen dependency of roots below the surface. Yet this invisible beauty is a critical partner in the life of the tree. Likewise there is more to humans than just our body. Our unseen being is also who we are. Our soul is the home of the mind. It is the place where we reason. It is where our will takes in myriads of input and makes decisions. It is where our inner life dwells. This is where that rush of feeling pure awe as you witness an alpin ..read more

When you marvel at the beauty of an autumn tree seemingly on fire with vivid oranges and yellows spread against the blue sky, there is no thought of the unseen dependency of roots below the surface. Yet this invisible beauty is a critical partner in the life of the tree. Likewise there is more to humans than just our body. Our unseen being is also who we are. Our soul is the home of the mind. It is the place where we reason. It is where our will takes in myriads of input and makes decisions. It is where our inner life dwells. This is where that rush of feeling pure awe as you witness an alpin ..read more

When you marvel at the beauty of an autumn tree seemingly on fire with vivid oranges and yellows spread against the blue sky, there is no thought of the unseen dependency of roots below the surface. Yet this invisible beauty is a critical partner in the life of the tree. Likewise there is more to humans than just our body. Our unseen being is also who we are. Our soul is the home of the mind. It is the place where we reason. It is where our will takes in myriads of input and makes decisions. It is where our inner life dwells. This is where that rush of feeling pure awe as you witness an alpin ..read more

The high pitched lashing of the frigid wind ebbed against my face as my coat flapped to the rhythm of the invisible currents. I remember thinking how the swirls of snow fragments flung about is like a small glimpse into"seeing" wind. My son Andrew and I were skiing that day, and the ridge on the mountain top was gusting so much that I had to steady myself while clipping in to my skis before heading down the slope. I stopped to take a picture of the scene, which is the photo above. Witnessing the pageant of an azure sky against the pure white snow is more stunning than any artist could create ..read more

I sometimes forget to remember God.  Unfortunately, that’s part of being human. My humanness stops me from remembering the undeserved kindness and compassion God pours upon me each day. It prevents me from knowing the hope that He can provide, and the world cannot. It keeps me from realizing the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, which lives within me through the Holy Spirit, can overcome any circumstance. The pace of life is often so urgent and consuming that I don’t always attend to God speaking to me, to really listen and hear His voice. And yet, when I read God’s Word, I am ..read more

I knew nothing about running a coffee shop. In the first few days after opening, I came home with brown paper lunch bags sloshing with scrambled mounds of coins and paper bills from the day’s take. After eating dinner I would pour out the waterfall of money on the dining room table. It’s about as interesting as counting leaves on a tree when it comes to sorting and counting every coin and bill, then recording the amount for each currency type in an Excel spreadsheet. I could hear my inner voice chanting “Am I out of my mind for starting this business?” The queue of tasks to plan and implement ..read more

The biggest crew race of the season for us was against Cal. The University of California at Berkeley crew had a legacy of winning three Olympic gold medals and ten national championships. I was a member of the eight man rowing team for U.C.L.A., and Cal was one of the giants in the sport. As the race official uttered the traditional phrase, “etes-vous pret, partez!” to begin the race, the two teams burst from a standing start to an explosion of high speed human machinery in the narrow Marina Del Rey estuary on the coast of Southern California. Sixteen rowers pulled their oars at precisely a r ..read more

It is the tallest skyscraper in the western hemisphere, and the fifth tallest in the world. One World Trade Center, also known as the “Freedom Tower” is named after the original North tower destroyed by terrorists on 9/11, 2001. The South tower, along with eleven other buildings in New York City were destroyed in this horrifying attack where thousands of people were killed. The design and planning the new One World Trade Center took four years, and the construction spanned another seven years, culminating in 2014 at a cost of over four billion U.S. dollars. At 104 stories and a height of exac ..read more

There is a kind of high you get when you push yourself. It’s that feeling when you have just finished an intense run or other type of exercise. Like a race car engine revving at high speed, you feel the pumping of your heart reverberating through your chest. It’s as if the needle on the tachometer is quivering over the red line. Your mind is totally lost to the acuteness of the moment as you drive the limits of your resolve. Robert Ludlum’s character Jason Bourne finds himself in a perpetual state of adrenaline and hyperfocus in The Bourne Series novels. It’s one of my favorite stories turned ..read more

We wake each day to a panorama. It’s a panorama continually moving before us made up of people going about their daily lives. In our face is the elastic activity of our home, the buzz and intentionality of our work, meandering roads that we travel, nature permeating our view with beauty, and the verve of the rest of our world. It’s raw life bounding towards us in real-time. What if you peered upon those streaming into your view with an intention to feel their life? It doesn’t matter if you actually see them in person, or on the news or other media. I found myself contemplating this as I obser ..read more