When camping, backpackers use a ground pad not for softness but for insulation. Without it, our tiny bodies will attempt to warm the cool bulk of planet Earth, chilling us.

I see a similar principle at work in many unhealthy relationships, especially with insitutions. (Contd.) A "warm" person, because they do not have sufficient insulation, is slowly cooled by the sheer bulk of a church, business, family system, codependent partner, etc. They usually do not notice it until they are getting metaphorically hypothermic. It is always debilitating.

I hear so much, often from thoughtful people, against “certainty” in matters of the spirit.

I understand they are reacting against a small, over-rational simulacrum of faith, one once likely handed to them with all manner of large and fluffy promises. I also understand that… …there is a process of the soul that must pass through its dark night, when one loses one’s sense of which way is up, and so may be rearranged; initiated into a new phase of the inner life. In such times there is a real letting go of some surety. But this process only comes to…

If you write, it's likely that a key step in your growth will be learning to quiet whoever it is that's "looking over your shoulder."

This is that unspoken influence (essence of parent, teacher, pastor, etc.) who wishes you to be a smaller, more convenient version of yourself. It is a very personal thing to discern and shed this watcher-on-the-shoulder. To do so does not mean disrespect to the people whose voices have got inside you. You do not honor them by letting their disembodied voice steer you. Telling the truth is the vocation of the writer.

Pleased to share "Montana Seeds" (more traditional than most of my poems) a piece dedicated to Eugene Peterson over at @NorthAmAnglican.

I wrote this last summer, while sitting in Eugene's chair, on a cliff overlooking Flathead Lake.

northamanglican.com/montana-seeds/ On that trip (with precious time spent with @stephenproctor, @MelissaMoore77, @BethMooreLPM, @cottrelltravis, and @Biscuet), I was reading Nabokov's "Pale Fire," swimming daily in the lake, and thinking much of the constancy of change, the mad, good grief of gaining-by-losing...

I spend a lot of time writing (and working with writers), and I have become extremely leery about what often feels like half of the writing helps and platitudes out there, including most "hacks," and nearly all "distraction-free" software, etc. Here's why... Organizational methods are fine, and if there is a specialized product or strategy that helps you do that, more power to you. But they will only solve superficial problems in the writer's life or method, and they often offer a comforting, distractive sense of false productivity.

Working with many writers over the past ten+ years, I have noticed three "types." All of them can produce excellent work, but each have unique roadblocks to getting work done well.

The three: The Overthinker, the Underthinker, and the Middlethinker. (Read on...) The Overthinker does precisely what you'd think. They're their own opponent on the page. Every line, every paragraph is a slow wrestling match between them and their "thing": perhaps imposter syndrome, a need to "research more," or just decision-making paralysis. They do best...

Pastoral Friendship (A Brief Thread):

While many facts about the Ravi Z. situation remain to be formally confirmed, what stood out most to me from @danielsilliman's recent reporting was this line (from RZ's business partner):

"He had no friends."

christianitytoday.com/news/2020/sept… I work with and interview many pastors & Christian leaders. I love them. Building trust and genuine connection with them are part of my role. And I have come to believe that a leader's capacity for friendship--true FRIENDSHIP--is the single most important marker of their health.

Have quite a few new followers on here (hi, folks), so wanted to say more of a hello than usual.

Hi.

I'm Paul.

I'm on the right. The pretty one is Emily. We've been married longer than you think. Our home has 3 kids, a rascal circus dog, and way too much hair. I work for Random House, as an editor of books for Christians. I also write books. Mostly for Christians.

My work seeks deep truth and forgotten beauty, integrating rich faith with the holy roughness of my homeland (Oregon) and my soul's bond to nature.

IT'S HERE. Five years after the first edition, the *brand new* edition of THE FACE OF THE DEEP drops today!

Read on for more about it, and how to get the full audiobook (read by me, with an original ambient score) for free. #TheFaceOfTheDeep I began this book in 2010, as part of my journey to seek how the Holy Spirit is present in & through our lives. This idea captured me--that at the core of the Christian message was this beautiful "secret"--that the Creator's own life becomes OUR life as we come to life in Christ.

I’m thinking today about how the New Testament writers wrote about the “world.”

Their Greek word, transliterated “kosmos,” is the root from which comes our word “cosmetic.” It roughly translates to “the adorning.”

This is important in light of how we think about systemic evil— In the worldview of the Greeks, the visible world was the manifestation of invisible realities. The world we saw was the “adorning” of a reality behind it, like the set of a stage, or a face with heavy make up. It was not *unreal,* but neither was it *fully* real.

Today is #Pentecost, the feast when Christians remember a new movement of the Holy Spirit to bring Christ's own life to all people, ending an old order founded on division and replacing it with a unified diversity that was (is) like a hurricane, like a holy fire.

Now, I have long planned to share big news today. My first book, THE FACE OF THE DEEP, is being re-released from @David_C_Cook this August. It will feature a new cover, an *incredible* new audio version (with original music), and more. But then this week happened.

Genetics are odd.

I had occasion today (trivia request) to remember my ancestor Nicholas Hilliard ("inventor of British art," and painter of Elizabeth I, Francis Drake, etc.)

Here is his selfie in 1577, next to a photo a friend snapped of me in 2014. And just because I love his style, a young man in flames from Hilliard...

One of the most exciting & offensive beliefs of St. Paul was that the old Hebrew prophets did not have a corner on the markets of human wisdom or divine truth.

He delighted in “pagan” thought and fresh words, seeing the whiplike arc of our human spirit curving toward Christ. His witness is one of many reasons I believe Christianity is the revealed extension and incarnation of the natural state of human spirituality—why Christ is the “Heavenly Táltos” who alone can climb the Tree of Life from basic roots to utter branches, and free us to do likewise.

Friends, meet Pásztorne Sitka Gazella and Pásztor János, my great-grandparents. They left a simmering Hungary for America, where they were often treated with prejudice, being "bad as Blacks or Italians," in the view of the Anglo majority. If they'd gone "back home..." ...America would have lost their daughter Gazella & sons (John and Paul), two heavily decorated war heroes who served on D-Day and at the Battle of the Bulge, later becoming a businessman and professor, respectively. (By the way, our Hungarian family stopped writing after 1956...

Honored to endorse my friend Ken Wystma's brilliant #MythOfEquality. His sharp research grounds it. Potent. Needed. Also, I endorse Panasonic radios from Goodwill.