The Shopkeeper: A Short Story
A shopkeeper builds a beautiful mountain world indoors — streams, cliffs, seminars, certificates, the best maps money can buy. People come in droves, hungry for the peaks and leave with souvenirs that look impressive on a shelf. One day, someone asks about actual excursions. The answer is telling: guiding is inefficient. And quietly, the mountains remain mostly untouched — real, risky and waiting.
Rooted in a Restless Age
Outrage feels like the air we breathe now — at meetings, online, even in church. We brace for defensiveness, settle into cynicism, and call it normal. But Paul says this restlessness has a root: life “in the flesh,” where neglect grows weeds fast. The Spirit offers another kind of cultivation — belonging, surrender and a steady step-by-step walk that forms real fruit in us.
Sacred Texts and ‘Little Bells’: Arvo Pärt’s Musical Masterpieces
Arvo Pärt’s music feels both ancient and startlingly new. His tintinnabuli style — “little bells” of melody and harmony — distills sound into simplicity, letting sacred texts breathe. Silence is never absence but presence, the space where God speaks. At ninety, Pärt still teaches us that less can carry more, and that even a single note can draw us into eternity.
Ignatian Exercises: Keeping Company With Jesus
Five years ago, Jenn and I set out to pray an hour a day for 34 weeks — the Ignatian Exercises. We didn’t know what we were getting into, only that we longed for something real with Jesus. What we found wasn’t religion or ritual, but relationship — keeping company with him. Listening. Speaking. Healing. Becoming the people he always meant us to be.
Letting the Knowledge of God Seep Into Our Bones
Spiritual formation isn’t just about ideas — it’s about the body, the habits, the little rituals that shape us — in kitchens and walking trails, in psalms sung loud and prayers whispered low.
A Primer on “Practicing the Way” — A Book Reshaping How We Think About Discipleship
For the exhausted volunteer, the burned-out pastor, or the skeptic who suspects there must be more to faith than what they have seen — Comer offers a path. It is simple but not easy: slow down, adopt ancient practices, and discover that apprenticeship to Jesus is not only possible in the modern world but may be the only way to become a person of love.