by jakeowensby | Dec 2, 2022 | God's love, Matthew 3:1-12
A dear old mentor of mine passed away a few years ago. But the lessons he taught still help me see things—see myself—a little more clearly. Maybe the most important of those lessons came in the form of a story he once told on himself in his usual self-deprecating...
by jakeowensby | Oct 28, 2022 | Luke 19:1-10, Zacchaeus
Honestly, sometimes I just lose my mind. I hear things that nobody is saying. For instance, Joy came back from her usual morning walk with our six-month old Lab-mix Gracie. Gracie was ecstatic. Joy, not so much. “Ugh. She was awful,” Joy said. “She kept jumping up for...
by jakeowensby | Sep 24, 2022 | God's love, Human Dignity, Luke 16:19-31, Respect
Eavesdropping is impolite. But sometimes you can’t help overhearing somebody else’s conversation. Waiting for a flight from Atlanta to Chicago, I was sitting across from a man in his early twenties. He was talking on his cell phone. Loudly. About his mother. “What a...
by jakeowensby | Sep 17, 2022 | Luke 16:1-13
Friendship, says C. S. Lewis, “is born at the moment when one [person] says to another “What! You too?” You love this thing that I love? And so it was for one of my oldest friendships. In our boyhood and teen years, R- and I shared a love of Tolkien’s Lord of...
by jakeowensby | Sep 9, 2022 | Luke 15:1-10
My maternal grandparents Joseph and Marie were joined at the hip. My mother and I spent a segment of my childhood and all of my teen years under their roof. They continued to speak German to each other and to my mother. They used broken English with me. Nevertheless,...
