Personal

I’m thinking about the word “abide” this week. Our church has been working through the writings of John to start off the new year. During my reading in John 15, as it probably should, the word abide is leaping off the page. You know those moments when you read something, and you know that you know that you know there is something important going on. This is where I found my heart and mind. I’m reading it again and again, and seeing this undeniable link between abiding and bearing fruit. What I hadn’t picked up on in earlier readings is the connection to prayer.

Hello! I’m Stephen Walsh, and if you’ve found your way here, you’re likely looking for a mix of professional insight and a bit of real-world perspective.

Karla and I were discussing the music industry and how it’s been affected by Apple Music, Spotify, and other similar services. The conversation started around an innocent box of CDs that Karla hangs on to for sentimental reasons despite the fact that she was almost every one of those songs available at the touch of a button online. There are formative albums, sentimental albums, gift albums, everyone else had it so I got also albums, et al. But all of these albums have one thing in common, they are owned. The endless supply of digital albums that we “add” to our libraries via digital music services isn’t quite the same.

We moved. Actually, we bought a house. We weren’t planning on it. We weren’t saving for it. It was basically handed to us on a silver platter. Back in April or May we were discussing our current living arrangements. We were in an amazing apartment with no upstairs neighbors. The upstairs neighbors had moved out in April. They were quite noisy with an even noisier large dog that was afraid of being alone…

What does "quiet" even mean?