Author Archives: Mark Ekstrom

This blog post is late for one very good reason:  I didn’t like my original post.  It was just kind of…meh.  So, I threw it out.  The only thing I’ve kept from it is the photograph above.  No, that dashing gentleman isn’t me.  He is the famed fencer Luigi Barbasetti who wrote the classic book TheContinue reading “Impossibilities”

Today is our wedding anniversary, but my wife and I won’t be spending the day as we normally would.  I’m in an all-day spiritual direction class, and she is spending time with family in Montana and Oregon (by spending time with family I mean she and my niece are visiting wineries).  It’s a different kindContinue reading “Already…but not quite yet”

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”            Jeremiah 29:11  “Man makes plans . . . and God laughs.”          Michael Chabon Spiritual lessons come in all shapesContinue reading “The Best-laid Plans”

“and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’”              Matthew 14 So…last week’s swimming lesson didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  In fact, it seemed like a step backward instead of forward.  The problem, I feel, was cumber. Cumber isn’t a word we use these days,Continue reading “Cumber”

“If grace is so wonderful, why do we have such difficulty recognizing and accepting it? Maybe it’s because grace is not gentle or made-to-order. It often comes disguised as loss, or failure, or unwelcome change.” ― Kathleen Norris When I was preaching I tried to follow one rule:  there needed to be blood on theContinue reading “Graceful Faith”

“Wake, awake, for night is flying” Hymn by Catherine Winkworth In last week’s blog I wrote about my quest to learn how to swim, and I promised to give an update from my lesson last Tuesday. I’m happy to report that I made some significant progress! Among other things, I was able to tread waterContinue reading “Awake (Part 2)”

“Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness, and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness.” ― David Steindl-Rast     As I may have mentioned in a previous post or two, I can’t swim. It’s probably my biggest regret. It’s also embarrassing;Continue reading “Awake”

John  21:15-19 Yesterday my daughter Megan discovered the skeleton in the Lutheran closet. She sent me a text with this link from Wikipedia – Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies. Wittenberg, 1543. Underneath was her comment – “Well shit. I didn’t know about this.” I understand and share her disappointment. In 1543, threeContinue reading “Skeletons”