Bespoke

Spirituality

Religion and Life

  • Magical Monotonous Christmas

    At the age of four, I doubted Santa for the first time. Not his girth or beard or constant jolliness, but rather my own worthiness to receive his gifts, and the weight of guilt rang in my ears with every chorus of, “He knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness…

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  • Dancing Around the Costume Chest

    Back in the days when my kids believed in Santa and my words had the force and weight to either bless them or crush them, our daughters and son indulged in make-believe, dressing up to become the character of their dreams through the magical powers of the family costume chest. It was magical only in…

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  • Flashes of Wonder

    If I wrote like my wife talks, I’d write narrative like a kid writing home from summer camp, “I had oatmeal for breakfast and we played softball and I outran all the boys in a foot race and we had hamburgers for dinner…” But, I write like a Red Bull-drinking cat on a hot tin…

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  • Stealing Back Cool from Kerouac

    I’ve always loved cool…have no idea what it is but I love it. Perhaps I have no idea because cool expresses not one meaning or attitude but many, a cross-pollinated adjective moving fluidly in many cultures and languages. An Anglo can say cool in Chinese (kù 酷) and it means essentially the same as in…

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  • New Book: Lay Down Your Guns

    Originally posted on Greg Ross Taylor: Released in October 2013 Read Excerpt Order from Amazon Book Description In Honduras’ “wild west” mountain jungles, Amanda Madrid found her calling as a medical doctor to poor farmers. When Amanda’s father rejects her dream to be a doctor, eighteen- year-old Amanda strikes out alone and enters medical school in Tegucigalpa. Her…

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  • The Wind in My Hair

    I drove my wife and my daughter Jenna and her boyfriend, Josh, to see bison yesterday. Northwest of Pawhuska, OK is a Tallgrass reserve where buffalo still roam the grasslands. Josh and Jenna are both Harding University All-Conference athletes and their school mascot is the Bison…so they wanted to encounter the beast face to face.…

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  • Megan’s Hands

    My daughter Jenna and I have a special hand shake thing which is difficult to describe but something that we’ve done since she was very young. It’s our secret and I can’t entirely divulge how it works, just that’s it’s our special hand to hand bond that she know’s me and I know her and…

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  • My Heart Was Singing My Legs Were Praying

    Tyler Davis on a recent trip to Uganda, praying with his legs. I was brought to faith in a church that valued knowledge and the intellect. Within the confines of my birth family, I watched my parents enflesh this knowledge into action. And certainly it affected me…clean your room, take out the trash, mow the…

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  • There’s a tornado in my coffee

    My son is writing his undergraduate thesis for Honors Meteorology on the topic, The Genesis of Tornadoes. I was wondering if The Revelation of Tornadoes might be easier to write. Tornado prediction is a non-linear dart tossed into the misty morning fog. It’s fraught with downdrafts of hope and gusts of unfounded certitude. Yet we…

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  • Caddying for the Younger Generation

    Francis Chan put hands over his face and agonized about whether to speak the unspeakable to a traditionally proud and spiritually cloistered group that appeared from his stage perch decidedly gray, liver-spotted hands enshrouding the candle lit flame that once was a raging bonfire. He was speaking to me and to my elders and leaders…

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