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A few excerpts from blog posts that got my attention this week:

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Because this is the church.

And it is, we are, I am broken.

But God, God, God is beautiful.

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If you’ve got something to say, say it. Slowly. With effect. The audience isn’t going anywhere. At least not the people you care about.

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There are few things more subversive in this world than someone who sees grace in every corner, who chuckles easy and loves easy and has both whimsy and mirth mixed in with even their honest assessments of the way things truly are.

Brennan Manning has a way of hitting me where it hurts.

“The conversation of most middle-class Americans, we are told, revolves around consumption: what to buy, what was just bought, where to eat, what to eat, the price of the neighbor’s house, what’s on sale this week, our clothes or someone else’s, the best car on the market this year, where to spend a vacation. Apparently we can’t stop eating, shopping, or consuming. Success is measured not in terms of love, wisdom, and maturity but by the size of one’s pile of possessions.” (Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus)

But what if we would begin a new conversation? And what does a conversation of love, wisdom and maturity look like?

One thing of which I am certain: if we began a new conversation, one that didn’t revolve around eating or shopping or consuming, it would be the kind of thing that could not be ignored or overlooked. It would be as radical as loving your enemy, or helping your neighbor, or not seeking revenge.

That kind of a conversation would change people. That kind of a conversation would change us.

Saturday night we drove to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with Maile’s family. The sun was setting and the kids were watching a movie on my computer and the miles just kept sliding behind us. We passed a truck stop on Route 81 north of Winchester.

“Do you remember that?” I asked Maile.

At first she didn’t know what I was talking about.

“That’s the first place we stopped to fill up the bus with gas on our trip,” I said, watching the exit sign recede in the rear view.

“Nine months ago,” Maile said. “Do you remember how anxious we were about it?”

And so much happened in the few months after that. Nine thousand miles worth of stuff. The craziest part is that when we stopped there, we didn’t have any idea what we were in for. We had no idea what the next four months would bring our way. We couldn’t have imagined the bus overheating in Nevada or losing our brakes on the Teton Pass or not having any power the first night in Yellowstone.

It was the adventure of a lifetime, and in some ways it all kind of started right there in that truck stop on Route 81. Just north of Winchester.

And it got me thinking about how life is like that, how we do the best with what we have in that moment. How we’re so uncertain at times. How difficult beginnings can be. The importance of community. The necessity of adventure.

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On December 10th the book that Maile and I have written about our trip will be ready for release in paperback and digital formats. We’ve titled it, How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp. In it we share many of the best stories from our trip, but it also serves as a kind of follow up to my earlier book, Building a Life Out of Words.

If you are a blogger and would like to review How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp at your blog during the week of December 10th, I’d love to send you a free, advance PDF copy. Just shoot me an email.

Finally, if you’d like to be kept in the loop about the book’s release, as well as receive notification of some giveaways I’ll be doing along with the book, sign up for my email newsletter (in the left sidebar).

We drove our car into the belly of the huge boat. We got out of the car and wandered through that massive, dark, underwater parking lot. We could feel the gentle sway under our feet, even while anchored in the harbor.

A cool breeze blew up off of the Bristol Channel, and we stood on the deck of the ferry and waited for the boat to ease out into the water. We were on our way to Ireland with an 8-hour ferry ride ahead of us.

The sun set into the water as the boat rotated towards the west, so we retreated back down into our tiny room. It was eight weeks square and held two miniature bunk beds. The storm began after we had already fallen asleep. I woke up to a violent pitching that nearly rolled me out of my bunk. The bottom of the huge ferry crashed down against the waves, then rose up again.

I kept waiting for water to flood down the stairwells and into our room.

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Then I imagine the disciples being in a tiny fishing boat, adrift at sea, surging up and down as the storm gathers. Waves wash over the sides, pooling water in the bottom of the boat. Lightning explodes in the sky. The wind lashes them with rain. They look to the miracle man, the one who has healed many people, the one they’ve begun to put their trust in. But he’s asleep.

They’ve seen him do amazing things, but they don’t know how to respond in the face of his apparent apathy.

Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

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There are things the disciples don’t say:

The disciples don’t simply shout, “We’re going to die!”

They don’t cry out, “Save us!”

They even refrain from the question I hear so often, “Why are you letting this happen?”

No, the first words out of their mouth give a voice to one of my gravest concerns about God:

“Don’t you care…?”

Don’t you care about cancer? Don’t you care that I don’t have any income? Don’t you care about all the vulnerable children in the world?

And in the face of that blame-filled question, Jesus gets out a can of rebuke. But he doesn’t direct that rebuke at the person asking the question – he directs the rebuke at the wind and the waves. He doesn’t rebuke their doubt about whether or not he cares – he rebukes the difficult circumstances.

Then he turns to them, because they are still afraid. It’s only after the calm has settled in that he asks them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

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I’m still searching for conclusions regarding this story of Jesus and the storm, but one thing is clear to me:

God is not offended by the question, “Don’t you care?”

A few months ago I had coffee with this really nice guy, Dan Schmidt, who somehow convinced me to do what I’m usually very hesitant to do: contribute to a collaborative effort. So I wrote a chapter for his book, Letters to Me. Mostly I agreed because I was fascinated with this idea of writing a letter to my younger self, but the talent of the other writers also got my attention (including folks like Lore Ferguson, Tamara Lunardo, Eric Wyatt, and a whole host of others).

Anyway, it’s available in paperback and digital formats. Check it out HERE.

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I’m also thrilled to announce that Maile and I are finalizing a book about our four-month cross-country trip. It’s called How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp (and other tales from our cross-country adventure). The goal is to release it on December 10th in paperback and digital formats – stay tuned for more information, cover photos, and giveaways.

In fact, if you want a chance to win a free paperback copy just before release, sign up for my email newsletter (you can do that over in the left side bar on this page). More on that the first week of December.

I’m doing the final edits and cover design for my upcoming book, “How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp.” If you have a blog and would like to help me promote the book’s release during the week of December 10th, shoot me a message with your email address and I’ll send you a free PDF copy. Plus, I’d love to send a free paperback copy to one of your readers during that week if you want to run some kind of a contest or drawing.

Thanks! More details and a picture of the cover to come next week!