With a little luck, I’ll get home later today after four wonderful but crazy trips strung together, multiple (okay, too many!) take-offs and landings with a sinus infection, cold and/or inclement weather just about everywhere I travelled, and several delayed and/or cancelled flights. Because of the aforementioned, I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to work on the blog over the last two weeks, but I did come across this charming video briefly illustrating the history of St. Valentine, for whom this day is named. Truth be told, almost nothing is known for certain about Valentine, but given that history is far more about stories than...

Vocation – the belief that all of God’s people are called to lives of purpose, service, and meaning – has always been one of the most important theological convictions to me. But, as I’ve learned through several years of research funded by the Lilly Endowment, it is also one of the least understood or actualized. Many, many of our people who listen to teaching and preaching about vocation regularly nevertheless report that they do not feel called. That is, they do not see their work and play and volunteering and everyday relationships as things of particular concern to God and the church, let alone view them as arenas of God’s...