Naming the summer. A summer theme for us to work on as a family. We were a newly blended family with both of us working and a lot of teenage angst and attitude. We called it the “Summer of Self-sufficiency”. Even as our children had the summer “off” from school, we were both working. To have them ask to me to make their meals, give them rides, find entertaining and interesting things to do was not going to work as a one-way street. We didn’t have some of the resources we had

Word. That’s what my bonus son Rico often says. Just that. Word. It’s slang for “I am in agreement” or can mean “I hear what you are saying” or “well said”. This week we hear lots of words from John 17. In a very lengthy prayer (that takes up all of the seventeenth chapter) Jesus prayers for his disciples and we can take it to be a prayer for us. Knowing that it is the night of his betrayal, arrest, soon it will be his trial and his crucifixion Jesus uses his last words with

How can we know the way? In times that are uncertain and unknown, we get to ask for directions. The stereotype of men unwilling to ask for directions is contradicted in our gospel reading. In John 14:1-14 Thomas says to Jesus, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” John 14:5. So maybe it’s not exactly a direct request for directions, but for this week that’s how I am going to take it. And when we keep reading we see that Jesus will go on to gi