Born in 1954, right in the middle of the Boomer age, I am the product of that generation, and of my Sicilian mother and northern European father. That means memories of the Cold War, the Peace Corps, bomb shelter drills, the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, polio vaccinations, and Tom Terrific from Captain Kangaroo. Mix that all together and you get …

       

… one version of a 60s child. My hair (flow it, show it, long as God can grow it) was advancing, as was the beard. Rumor had it that Charles Manson feared me, and that many of my high school teachers were terrified.

Joining the fairly common peripatetic lifestyle of that era, I made the obligatory pilgrimages “out west” and sampled the typical spiritual smorgasbord of philosophy and varied religious experience.  I underwent a major change in life direction at the age of 21 when Jesus found me wandering in very thorny places and offered the grace and privilege of believing in and following him.

That encounter with God’s Way occurred in 1975; unfortunately (or not), that means there are no extant Tweets or Chats to memorialize the event. Once captured, however, I have not been able to escape the strong hand of the Shepherd. After a number of years attending the University of Michigan, I took up a call first to international missions and then to pastoral work.

After 20 years of living an unmarried missionary life with a crew of like-minded men, I wed Joanne (nee Kao) in 1996, eventually eschewing the pastorate for law school and subsequent work as an attorney. Not long into our marriage, Joanne and I adopted two children from China – Annie (b. 1998) and Ben (b. 2000), neither of whom has shown any inclination to follow their father into the legal field, but both of whom have displayed their own admirable focus and purpose in life.

As our family moves into a new existential configuration (one child beginning college, the other almost there), we are ever aware of how the gift of faith pursues us, catches us, and does its best to transform us into the humans for whom God was afflicted with our afflictions. We are doing so with a few hundred other believers who make up an ecumenical Christian community known as the Word of Life, centered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Joanne writes (her first book, Groceries on a Saturday Morning, was published several years ago) and does a good deal of mentoring and teaching.

As for me, I continue to provide attorney time for those who have little or no recourse to the law via the high-priced world of today’s legal practice. In the off-hours, I provide pastoral care for members of our community, lead worship and speak at our meetings, ride my bicycle in and out of season, and evince a moderate obsession with the vocal works of J.S. Bach.

If you want to know why I’m writing this blog, take a look at my first post entitled, “Why this Blog?” My hope is that we can share the blessed assurance that rises up in us when we are confronted by the beauty of God’s holiness, sovereignty, and goodness.

Sail on!