Walks with Barry - Profoundly Simple: A Walk Reframed

  As we have walked together now for almost a year, I’m sure you have come to know my love of this neighborhood and my deep appreciation of the neighbor’s love of lawn decorations. Year round, it seems there is always something playful and kitschy going on among the streets of this interesting place. If you walk one direction on my own street, in a few blocks you come to a cul-de-sac. And in this cul-de-sac, a dinosaur lives. She lives here all the time, year round. And, this dinosaur is large. It stays in its place, the size of a small car, changing accessories as the seasons come and go. I like to check on the beast from time to time, making sure that through all the extremes of wind and weather the past lives. Like my own local Jurassic Park, it seems to connect us all to another world. These days our neighborhood dinosaur is busy proclaiming that “Spring has Sprung”. And indeed it has. Beautiful sunny days and thundering light shows in close succession. Air conditioning running...

  These are wonderful days to walk. Everything springing back to life after a long dormant winter. This tree captured my attention because 90% of the plant seems dormant at best and dead at worst. Brittle, gray, twisted sticks - and then these brilliant flowers. It doesn’t seem possible that something so beautiful could coexist in such barrenness. It brings to mind the flowers I have seen blooming in the desert, and the faith I have seen in people in the midst of the worst life can bring. I am amazed by both because they speak of the presence of God. They speak of the power at work constantly to bring new life to all creation. We can’t go by outward appearances alone. Any moment something new and powerful may burst free from the bleakness of circumstances and time. Any moment can be THE moment when hope comes and life returns. Isaiah writes, “The wilderness and the desert will be glad, And the Arabah will rejoice and blossom; Like the crocus.” When our lives feel desolate and dry l...

  As I walked on this bright sunny day, I came across this group of Geraniums just waiting to be planted. They are bright and healthy and busting at the seams of their pots. It is time to plant. It is time to grow. It is time to begin again in new life and energy. So it is with Spring. In a way, it seems as if we have been trapped in a long, long winter. For a year we have been waiting; waiting to gather, waiting for the mundane routines we took for granted, waiting for the chance to try new things. In a way, we have been waiting to bloom once again. We have grown impatient in our dormancy. We have struggled to remain hopeful and have battled the darkness that would swallow us. We have lived with uncertainty and anxiety and even a little fear. We are ready for Spring. But we continued, knowing even in the harshest of our winter days, that the seasons would change. Marty Rubin writes, “The deep roots never doubt spring will come.” The Psalmist writes that we can be “like a tree plan...

  This morning brought a beautiful sky into my life for a brief moment as I rushed from the office to physical therapy and back again. It seemed that the day could not decide whether to be sunny or cloudy. It took me a moment to determine whether the sun was rising or the moon setting. For a moment it was if creation itself joined all of us human creatures In our uncertainty and confusion about life. I was struck with just how beautiful this uncertainty could be in itself. Perhaps life doesn’t have to be perfect to bring joy. Perhaps all the answers don’t have to be known and the next steps perfectly clear for our own life of uncertainty to be beautiful as well. Isn’t it a comforting thought to know we don’t have to figure everything out before our life matters to God? Isn’t it a comforting thought to know that life can be full of beauty even in the midst of uncertainty? Jesus said that the Kingdom of God was like a man who trips over a once buried treasure. The man had no idea he...

  As you know, one of the things I love about my little neighborhood is the playful attitude around seasonal decorations. It is hard to believe it is already St. Patrick’s Day. Spring is here, and soon rivers will flow green. There will be parades and some folk will drink and eat all sorts of things colored green. Hair colors will green up all around us and I suppose that somewhere there are people who still pinch one another if they come across someone not wearing green. I will no doubt spend the morning regretting that I have no Lucky Charms to enjoy for breakfast. What a day this will be! St Patrick, one of the Patron Saints of Ireland, is a mysterious character. He wasn’t Irish at all, but British. He was captured by Irish pirates as a boy and held as a slave for many years. He escaped and returned to Britain where he threw himself into religious training. He returned a missionary and rose to the status of legend. Among the writings attributed to him is a long prayer and hymn ...

  Each daily walk is a chance to watch Spring arrive. Each day, more flowers. Each day, more yard work completed. Each day, sunny skies do their best to say goodbye to winter and hello to the next season. Colors are popping out of the drabness and dormancy of the past long months. The snow is forgotten and all the world seems to be getting ready. Getting ready, for what? The flowers are preparing to glow and grow until the heat of a Texas summer beats them back. The trees bloom in preparation for birds and shade and the occasional thunderstorm. Lawns are slowly creeping back to green, preparing for play and picnics and romping dogs. People, well, we people, are preparing for days that we hope will bring the end of the pandemic and the chance to travel and visit and live more as we did before. God is also preparing. God is preparing a place for all to know the joy of peace and wholeness. God is preparing those who will see and hear and trust a new day of justice and respect. God is ...

  As I took a very limited walk through my neighborhood for the first time since fracturing my leg, I immediately came across this perfect image for this time of year. Amidst the mulch and mowed down remains of last year’s flowers, the new emerges. Like these flowers, our past never really goes away completely. The places we’ve been, the things we have done, the choices we’ve made, the things others have done to us, what life has brought to our doorstep - all these become a part of who we are and serve as the fertile soil for who we are becoming. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” As we continue to walk toward Easter and the ultimate celebration of new life, I am grateful for those along the way who have contributed to my life through their love and support. I am thankful for the opportunities to learn and grow. And, as enough years have rolled past, I’m beginning - just beginning, mind you - to be able to see how some...

  Cloud formations like this always make me think of science fiction movies. The play of light and shadow, the break in the clouds, the magic of the dusk - all these combine to give a mysterious, ominous, yet beautiful energy to the sky. This portal into space holds infinite possibilities. In the old sci-fi movies, someone would be either coming or going through such a sky in a highly stylized ship. Human and alien were about to meet face to face; usually it didn’t go well. As a child, such a sky would also remind me of church talk about the second coming of Christ - trumpets sounding and clouds parting and judgement coming. The songs we sang about that day would play in my head and I would be considerably more anxious than I was at the thought of aliens landing on earth! All this at the sight of clouds in the darkening skies of evening. Interesting how a sight as beautiful as these clouds can spark such vivid memories, especially memories with a bit of an edge to them. But I supp...

  Walking around the church at the end of the day has many benefits, one of which is the opportunity to see a beautiful Texas sunset. The clouds are illuminated in such a brilliant fashion that it seems to be the result of a movie studio’s special effects. I never grow tired of taking a pause to savor the great wonder and beauty of the moment. A wise one wrote, “Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under!” I am coming to believe that this would not be a bad philosophy for living. To enjoy this gift takes but a moment. I imagine most everything else can keep until the darkness begins to fall. My mind then turns to other gifts that come unplanned and pass through our lives quickly. Laughter. Memories. The meeting of eyes that are filled with love. A moment of silence shared in the midst of a hectic and chaotic world. The sense that God is present. All of these can come unbidden into our lives, and then pass ...

  You see many things as you walk, if you keep your eyes open. I have enjoyed sharing what I have seen over this past year as I have made my way through the pandemic. Yes, you heard correctly. We are coming up on the one year mark of this experience we have all shared. It has been both a joy and a challenge to take pictures of random things I find interesting and then share my reflections on life and faith. I never dreamed I would still be writing a year later. I feared I would run out of things to photograph and that one day I would run out of words. So far, things are still rolling along. As I tromped around the church building in my boot, trying to keep up with my daily miles, it was a serendipity to come upon a rainbow. It was there, peeking out the window of one of the rooms in our preschool. Rainbows have the power to make any day a better day. The colors, the arching shape, the idea of sun and rain together, all these work together to make a rainbow a happy thing. In the Bib...

  As I “physical therapy” my way out of the boot and try to transition back to a more normal routine of walking, I was struck by the image of this worn track around the tether ball pole. An amazing circular path, worn down by many feet over many years, this path is the very definition of a “rut”. The same movement, over and over and over again, leads to getting deeper and deeper into the rut. Even if you love tether ball, you are not going to see much change of scenery. Round and round you’ll go. The circle gets no wider, only deeper. Our lives can feel stuck in such a rut. We go through the same routine each day, see the same faces, hear the same voices. We can fulfill the same tasks day after day. We can lose sight of the “why” of our lives. We can stop feeling purposeful. Things that once brought us joy can become frustrating. We can fail to see God at work in our life or in the lives of those around us. This is a shared human experience. We can so easily fall into such a routin...

  After a walk I needed a nice, cold ice water, so I visited the Sonic just down the street from the office. Even with an almost-mended fracture and a boot, I am walkiing my miles for our 40 Day Lenten Challenge. We are all about “Living on Purpose” during these six weeks. We are fasting and praying and serving. We are practicing discipline upon discipline as a way of preparation for Holy Week and Easter. So you can imagine my thoughts when I pulled into the parking place to order. It seemed I was being taunted. I felt I was being mocked. In the midst of all this intentional living, I was greeted by the bold exclamation: “Now is NOT the time for self-control”. You have got to be kidding me! I did NOT need this today. In fact, I needed a little help. Surprisingly, help was not to be found at Sonic. Life can often feel like those cartoons from my childhood that depict a character facing a choice with a little devil on one shoulder and a little angel on the other; each voice urging an...

  As I enjoyed my daily walk around the church buildings, I came across what appeared to be the first flower of Spring. The green shoots had broken through the mulch in various beds and gardens, but this was the first flower I had seen. The happy yellow color appeared so vivid in the bright sunlight. The snow of recent weeks seemed far removed from reality. Somehow, when the first flowers start to bloom, it seems to have been forever Spring. There are a few gifts that have that kind of power in my life and in my heart. Holding a new born baby seems to always fill me with hope. Hanging out with the youth at church seems to always make me feel a little younger at heart. Talking with an older saint seems to always make me more aware of the amazing lives going on around me each moment. To gather for worship seems to always make my joy a little more complete and my experience of God a little more full. The older I become, the more I need and treasure these gifts. They have become the st...

  It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm. I was outside enjoying time with some seriously wonderful middle schoolers. We were seated at picnic tables and enjoying a snack, a craft and Bible study. I was getting ready to launch into a long discourse on the meaning of Sabbath when it was clear that I was not even in the vicinity of holding anyone’s attention. Then it was pointed out that something awesome was happening behind me. I couldn’t turn around, so I grabbed my phone and took a picture, selfie-style. What a pleasant and joyful surprise! I did not notice at the time that the photo captured not one, but two, hot air balloons. It turns out this was a double blessing, not a distraction at all. I guess we never can know what might drift into our lives, unplanned and unbidden, to bring us beauty and joy. It is a shame that when we think of the unexpected in life, we so often go straight to the negatives. Unwanted news from the doctor. A problem at work. Unhappy people in our life. ...

  One day after a hard rain, my walk took me past this huge puddle that forms on the church property after a storm. The “pond” is an interesting shape, with varied shorelines and depth. It even reflects the rooftops and sky as beautifully as a mirror. But it is amazingly temporary. In just a day or two it disappears as quickly as it forms. The lawn then returns to its former dehydrated self, needing a sprinkler to survive. I have long admired the brilliant writing of George Herbert, a Welsh-born poet and priest in the Church of England during in the 17th century. He writes simple words of wisdom, “Every path hath a puddle." No path is immune from the rain or from the puddles. Sometimes we need to remember this simple truth. Jesus said that God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” The same sky that holds the most brilliant sunrises also holds the darkest of clouds and the hardest of rains. There are no favorites ...

  have walked through the beautiful baptismal garden at my church countless times across the years. Since my fractured leg and the accompanying boot, I am walking at church exclusively to keep my commitment to our 40 Day Challenge during the season of Lent. Which means I walk this way almost every day. Which means I have to wonder why it took me so long to notice this sculpture of a bird. This delicate metal outline is planted in the bed, a couple of inches from the stone wall. It seems at the same time engraved in the wall and flying free. Once this graceful bird caught my eye, it never fails to be the first thing I see. It makes my heart glad every time I pass. It makes me wonder about what else I have failed to notice in my everyday busyness. What other beautiful things have been mine to see and touch? What beautiful people have I passed day after day, failing to notice the gifts they bring to the world or the gift they are themselves? In the words of the old Gospel hymn, “Open...

  On Saturday, I had a very special stop on my walk through the church. I was excited about being able to baptize the beautiful child of a couple whose wedding I had the privilege of performing several years ago. The young mother had been a youth in a church I served years ago, which means we share wonderful memories of Bible studies, mission trips and youth group meetings. I would finally see their baby. I would be able to see the couple’s parents again. I have found this to be one of the few joys of getting older, I am now baptizing the children of people I knew when they were children. In my excitement, I readied everything in the sanctuary long before the appointed time. Walking past, I noticed that the light coming in through the stained glass window was captured and reflected in the water of the beautiful glass container. I drew close to find a perfect, inverted image of the window . I could not help but think of this on Sunday when our time in worship centered on losing our ...