When I was eleven, after brief stints in several southern California towns, my family finally landed in the small beach town of Ventura, California, about thirty minutes south of Santa Barbara. In addition to traditional youth sports and other adolescent activities, as you can imagine in a beach town, surfing was very popular and cool!   I love the ocean! And during my days in Ventura, I was at the beach often, at least in the summer. And like any self-respecting Venturan, I tried my hand at surfing. I remember driving with my friends from high school on the northbound 101 freeway many summers, looking for the best waves between Ventura and Santa Barbara. And my bedroom walls were covered with pictures I’d cut out from my subscription to Surfer Magazine.   I loved the beach, and I loved surfing. But the fact is, I never got very good at it, unlike my brother, Mark, who moved to Maui after graduation and spent six months surfing amazing waves. Though I was a decent athlete...

You’ve probably heard the sarcastic but too close-to-the-truth saying, Nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. And yet, as we head into a new year, I imagine that we are all looking for some sense of certainty and clarity regarding the future; some solid ground on which we can stand to steady and guide us through the fog, frustration and fears that the year 2024 inevitably holds as we continue to hear about or experience disease and disaster or war and global warming, just to name a few issues that may keep us up at night.    In times of uncertainty, some people look for confidence in their finances, surmising that even if they don’t know what’s going on, at least they’ve got money in the bank.  Others lean into their friendships and family connections, hoping that whatever comes, we’ll get through it together. Many others pour themselves into politics and activism seeking security in working to shape the future toward a better outcome – at least their prefe...

At the beginning of Matthew chapter 24, Jesus predicts the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. His disciples are understandably shocked and disturbed and ask Jesus the pressing question, “When will this happen…?” But they don’t stop there, they go on to ask the question that has burned in the minds of the faithful throughout the centuries since Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension, “what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” We can imagine that for Jews living in Israel under Roman occupation at the time of Christ, the utter destruction of the temple1 could easily be considered a clear sign that the end was imminent. Jesus’ prediction was fulfilled, as the Jewish Temple was indeed destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. And yet, here we are nearly two thousand years later still pondering and sometimes predicting the return of Christ and the end of the world as we know it, to borrow a line from the 80’s band, R.E.M. ...