Tim Woodcock writes: I’ve been working my way through Thich Nhat Hanh ’s wonderful little book How to Connect. It’s what I’ve come to think of as a “strong black coffee book” – something that needs to be taken slowly because it's a little too powerful to appreciate quickly.  Having just taken a road trip to Michigan and back, doing far more driving than ordinarily do in daily life, I was greatly struck by his reflection “Stopping for a red light,” perhaps in part because it echoes some of what Vickie wrote in her June 8 blog post, “Tickets, Speed Limits and Prayer Life.” On this drive, I was also struck by the reality that you’ve got to embrace the place you are in right now – whether it’s grinding urban traffic around Chicago during a rainstorm or the rolling countryside of Illinois and Indiana as the sun comes out. To give this reflection a little more context, the previous entry in How to Connect mentions the use of bells in both the Buddhist and Christian traditions. He ...

Vickie Robinson writes: As I drove into work last week, I could see the driver behind me moving from one lane to the next.  Apparently, my driving speed and the other drivers wasn’t fast enough for her. As she tried on many occasions to intimidate me into driving faster, I continued to drive the speed limit. After about a mile, the driver quickly came around me, she failed to see the policeman that was sitting in a blind spot. He pulled her over without hesitation. As I looked at this young lady and I thought about the mistakes she had made, not only was she driving recklessly, she also could have hit someone who was getting ready to cross the street. As I witnessed this, I thought about my personal and spiritual life. As the young lady was so eager to speed, it reminded me of how quickly I was with making decisions without waiting on God to answer my prayers. This always resulted in me, so to speak, getting pulled over. If only I had just taken my time and listened to Him, not ...

Tim Woodcock writes: While we wait for the election results, a word that has risen to new-found prominence is patience . I am sure that after the fact we could run a search on transcripts of all the news reporting and commentary from the last few days and see a massive spike in the use of the word. That led me to think, what exactly does the good book, have to say about patience? There’s no shortage of Bible verses to choose from. Using Bible Gateway  to find translations that favored patience over near-synonym “perseverance” and “steadfastness,” here’s what caught my eye.   Romans 5:3-4 says, ”We also boast in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces patience,  patience produces character, and character produces hope.” (Modern English Version). “We boast in tribulation” is translated as “we glory in suffering” in the NIV.   2 Peter 1:5-9 takes a similar idea of how one virtue builds upon another. “For this reason make every effort to add virtue to y...