August weekend 2025 spirituality column

Synchronizing Our Heart With Our Actions

Have you ever done the right thing in a difficult situation, but your heart said, "I'm just not feeling it"? If so, then you know how hard it is to sync your feelings with your actions.

I remember such a moment in 1995 in Mountain View, California where I was stationed at Onizuka Air Station. It was memorable because it was the very first time I shared a chaplain's assignment with a Catholic priest.

His name was Richard Regan.

Father Regan was a winsome and gregarious guy who was adored by his parishioners. We became fast friends, and he encouraged me to call him Richard, but around his parishioners, I had to call him "Father."

One weekday morning, Richard and I arrived in uniform for a meeting in our chapel office. As we walked toward the entryway, we met two contractors hired to refurbish the steps.

The two men scrambled to their feet. They looked past me and greeted Richard in a deep Irish brogue.

"Top o' the morning to ya', Father."

Richard returned a polished smile as we walked past them to enter our office suite.

Inside, I noted how the men barely glanced at me.

Richard explained.

"I met them a few days ago and they asked about the Christian cross we both wear on our uniforms. I told them that I was a Catholic priest and you are a Protestant minister."

Richard described how the men looked down at their work in an awkward pause. "Is that so?" they asked.

"I hope that won't stop you from greeting him each morning too," Richard said.

"We'll greet him if you insist," one admitted, "but I'm afraid we'll be giving him a rather frosty 'top-o'-the-morning.'"

Richard laughed. The men didn't.

 

I had much in common with those men. We both were having trouble syncing our feelings with doing what we knew was right.

It was a stretch for me to call my friend "Father" because I was raised with the literal interpretation of Jesus' words in Mathew 23:9: "Do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." Yet I learned to do it because it was a professional courtesy of clerical protocol.

The catholic men, likely raised in the Northern Ireland conflict, probably found it difficult not to spit on Protestants, but the good Father's insistence encouraged them to do what was right.

Today, in the current political climate, I'm aware that there are many issues that work to separate us, such as gun control, immigration and abortion. These topics are difficult to decide, but we choose our views for various reasons based on our upbringing, personalities and experiences.

Yet as people of faith, we do know what is right between each other. Our faith demands we do unto others, as we would have them do unto us. We know for certain that we must love God with all our heart and our neighbor as our self.

So, even during these days of political madness and uncertainty, I hope we will pledge to ourselves and to our faith, to do the right thing between each other. We will remain civil and kind and will synchronize our faith with our actions.

As for the Irishmen, I told Richard that they'd warmed a bit, but still hadn't wished me, "Top-o'-the-morning."

"Sounds like progress," he said.

"How so?"

"If they really didn't like you, they'd insult you with something like, "May the cat eat you, and may the devil eat the cat."

I grinned. I suppose sometimes you take what you can get.

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Discounted versions of all my books can be found on Amazon by searching for "Norris Burkes." Autographed copies can be obtained on my website www.thechaplain.netor by sending a check for $20 for each book to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602. 

Sign up to receive this weekly column by email at www.thechaplain.net/newsletter/ or send me your email address to comment@thechaplain.net.

 

 

July 25 weekend 2025 spirituality column

Chaplain Finds His Real Church

 

In 1991, I made a career shift from Southern Baptist pastor to interfaith hospital chaplain. 

 

A close colleague was so concerned about my "apostasy" that he promised he would help me find a new church if I ever "returned to the ministry." 

 

"I'm not leaving ministry," I said. "Hospital chaplaincy is still 'the ministry!'"  

 

As most of you know, I went on to serve 25 years of ministry in both military and hospital chaplaincy. 

 

But during those years, I promised myself that if I ever returned to the pastorate, I'd change at least four things from my previous churches.

 

In October 2022, I took the chance to test my ideas when I accepted the pastor role at Community Church of Nevada City, Ca. (300 Main St.)

 

The first change I made in my approach was to lay off guilting parishioners into attending every church service. I want our church to be a place where people seek to restore what's broken before they return to life. 

 

I told them that church can't just be our destination. It must become an effort to live "church" outside the walls, visiting the sick, housing the homeless and sheltering the refugee.  

 

Second, I'd promised to lay off the money guilt trip.  The Pastor Norris of the 90's asked members to give their entire charity dollar to the church. In my new pastor role, I remind folks of our duty to also clothe the poor, feed the hungry and bring justice to the oppressed.  

 

My wife says I became a preacher because I couldn't sit still in the pew. Therefore, my third change has been to redesign nearly everything about the Sunday service around people who need movement to learn.  

 

I preach interactive sermons where people can respond or even disagree. We've injected movement and response into the Lord's Supper, using individual stations where people experience the sounds, smells and tastes of Jesus' teaching.  

 

I've done away with the loud music that isolates worshippers and keeps them from acknowledging those around them. 

 

We still use some hymns, but I challenge folks to understand their meaning. I've even inserted a few secular songs that encourage people to extend God's work outside the church. 

 

Finally, my biggest change is trying to preach R-E-A-L sermons.  

 

R – relevant. I still preach the traditional stories of Samson, Moses, and the virgin birth, but I try to make those stories relevant to today's life. I'll compare Samson's failure of strength to times my strength has failed me. I tell how Moses dealt with the rejection of his own people. And I talk about a young couple who must have been scared to death with their first child.  

 

E – empathetic. I try to demonstrate that I not only understand the people but feel their hurt. As I return to preaching again, I tell modern stories that show an appreciation for the pain that life can put us through and the thrills it can immerse us in.  

 

A – authentic. Pastoring again challenges me to share more of my own failures and heartbreaks. I try to admit the contradiction I feel between personal fear and the Scriptural admonition for us not to be afraid. 

I even share the defeat I feel over unanswered prayers and my frustration in loving the unlovable.  

 

L – language. A friend of my mine told me he would recognize a real church if he heard the pastor say "damn" once in a while.

 

OK, no, I haven't started cussing from the pulpit, but I do work harder to communicate in everyday language. I avoid trying to prove I graduated from seminary with words like Christology, eschatology and ecclesiology.  

 

If my old friend ever reads this, he'll likely regret his offer to help me find a new church. But for now, my real church is growing a bit as we all gather for a safe place to explore our faith.

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All of my books can be ordered on Amazon. Autographed copies can be obtained on my website www.thechaplain.netorby sending a check for $20 for each book to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.  

 

Sign up to receive this weekly column by email at www.thechaplain.net/newsletter/ or send me your email address to comment@thechaplain.net.

 

 

 

July 18 weekend 2025 spirituality column

Speeding Pastor Can't Hide Sins

I want to caution you that if you're driving this summer, be careful out there. The roads aren't just filled with drunk drivers.    

Sometimes they're filled with reckless pastors—as they were 25 years ago in Brentwood, Calif. During the late 1980s, I was the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in town. No, this wasn't the Southern California Brentwood of O.J. Simpson fame. This was the sleepy, rural Brentwood in Northern California where strawberries were first bioengineered.    

As our town was somewhat secluded, I would often drive a few hours to  attend ministers' conferences in one of the San Francisco area cities. It was on    my return from one of those conferences that I found myself on the wrong end of the law.    

It was about 2 a.m. one Friday when I drove into the Brentwood city limits. There were no stoplights at the time and thus little to impede my return home.    However, the town was full of stop signs.    

Before I continue, let me hasten to add I was 27 years old, fresh out of seminary. With somewhat invincible thinking, I reasoned there are only Ten Commandments.     

To me, everything else seemed more of a suggestion.    Posted along the final half-mile homeward stretch of Walnut Boulevard was what seemed like three suggestions: stop signs about 100 yards apart.    

And at 2 a.m., it certainly seemed as though a young minister, eager to  return to his young bride, ought to be allowed passage through the signs at about 25 mph. Not exactly fast enough to be reckless, but fast enough to draw the attention of a fairly sleepy police officer.    In a red flash, the officer pulled me over and began to question my memory.    

"Do you recall seeing the three stop signs you just blew through?"    "Yes," I said, sheepishly producing my license.    

For the next several minutes, we played 20 Questions, and he quickly discovered I was a pastor.    

"What church?" he asked.    

"The Southern Baptist church—but probably not for long."    

"Why is that?" he asked.    

I reminded him the town newspaper usually published police reports, and it was difficult to imagine my parishioners reacting favorably to the news that their pastor had blown through half the stop signs in town.    

He apparently heard my concern because he generously reduced my infraction to running only one stop sign.    

But as he did, he posed a question that has guided me much of my career.    

"Do you suppose that your church members never been ticketed?"    

His question implied that a church that doesn't realize it has a flesh-and-blood pastor would be a church that has long been asleep.    

In the years since, I've come to realize that not only is it a sin to think of yourself as incapable of sinning, but it may be worse to think of yourself as someone who'd never want to be discovered sinning.    

No, I'm not suggesting we display our sins in a way that makes us seem more human. I'm only suggesting we don't attempt to hide our sins in a way that makes us less than human. 

Because, as my mom always said, echoing Numbers 32:23: "Your sin will find you out."    

Not long after that, The Brentwood Press published a story about speeders with a picture of an unsuspecting car driving down Walnut Boulevard.  

The story featured a car which very much resembled mine and was headlined "Walnut Boulevard Problem With Speeders."    

Guilty, again. 

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Column excerpted from my book, "Thriving Beyond Surviving."

All of my books can be ordered on Amazon. Autographed copies can be obtained on my website www.thechaplain.netor by sending a check for $20 for each book to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.

Sign up to receive this weekly column by email at www.thechaplain.net/newsletter/ or send me your email address to comment@thechaplain.net.  

 

 

 

July 11 weekend 2025 spirituality column

Chaplain Offers – Dating Advice?

Are you familiar with a business named Chispa?

No, I'm not talking about Chispa Project, the nonprofit my daughter Sara founded in 2015 to establish children's libraries in Honduras. Just now, they are working on library #100. No small feat for their small but powerful Honduran team.

But the Chispa I'm referring to is the #1 Latino dating app. According to their website, they are "Fluent in Amor." This Chispa claims to have made "the perfect dating app for single Latina women and single Latino men."

"Chispa" is Spanish for "spark," which is why both the dating app and a literacy organization chose the name. Both organizations are appropriately named. After all, your love life and the books you read can radically light up your life and change your future.

I only mention Chispa, the dating app, because Chispa Project, the non-profit, takes many misdirected phone calls from lovelorn folks asking:

"Why is my account blocked?"
"Why isn't SHE calling me?"
"I haven't found anyone, can I get a refund?"

The incredulous part isn't how they find Sara's number in the first place, but how crazy-certain they are that they've reached the right number -- no matter how many times Sara tells them otherwise.

She's tried clarifying her opening line to avoid confusion: "Hello, this is Sara at Chispa Project, the non-profit in Honduras!"

"Hi, I'm trying to access my account and…"

"Ooh, so sorry!" Sara says in perfect Spanish, "You've reached Chispa Project, the non-profit in Honduras."

"I really need to get on your site ASAP…" insists the caller.

"Sorry, we're not related to the Chispa dating app. Wrong number."

They beg her, "Can't you connect me to the right person?"

Listening to Sara patiently explain – again and again – that she's not tech support for a dating app reminds me of how often Jesus had to clarify his mission for those who misunderstood him. People sought a political savior or miracle worker, but Jesus kept emphasizing a different purpose.

Despite all the parables, analogies, metaphors, and symbols Jesus used, he was clear and repetitive about one thing in particular—love—the chispa that lights everything else.

When he said to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind," and to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37–39), he pointed to the fire that kindles true connection, purpose, and transformation.

Like a single chispa that can ignite a flame, love sets everything in motion—whether it's changing a life through a children's book, finding a life partner, or growing closer to God by following Jesus' example.

To be clear, this columnist does not endorse the dating app in question. I'm already locked into a lifetime subscription with my wife, Becky.

It's not the fleeting spark of romance I'm looking for, but a different kind of spark: one that ignites compassion, healing, and humility. These days, I find myself affirming the love that kindles true connection, purpose, and transformation – like Jesus taught.

How can we all become more fluent in the amor that demonstrates empathy? An amor that humbles us across differences?

In Greek, this type of amor is described as agape—a love that is unconditional, selfless, sacrificial. It's the choice to love regardless of circumstances or feelings.

In English, it might seem that Chispa, the app, and Chispa Project, the non-profit, offer the same thing—a spark of love. Make no mistake, both are important and necessary, but they are different.

Chispa, the app, offers a chance at romantic love. Chispa Project, the non-profit, encourages the agape love for our neighbors.

I keep telling Sara that she should charge a minimum donation for each of the crisscrossed Chispa calls she gets, but she always mutters something about honesty and goofy dad ideas.

But now the choice is yours—what will you do to spark agape in whatever Chispa you end up calling? What chispa will you ignite in your community?

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Celebrate Chispa's 100th library with me by donating $100 today at www.chispaproject.org/100 or send a check made out to Chispa Project at 10556 Combie Road, Suite 6643, Auburn, CA 95602.

Learn more at chispaproject.org. Email Norris at comments@thechaplain.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July 4 weekend 2025 spirituality column

Defending The Constitution Isn't Magic

 

As a chaplain, I find no greater meaning for Independence Day than in our constitutional right to freedom of worship. It's a right I helped to defend during my 2009 deployment as a USAF Protestant Chaplain in Balad, Iraq. 

 

One afternoon the Senior Chaplain, Richard Hartwell, invited me to his office to introduce me to a chapel visitor. The man, a sergeant in his mid-30s, said he and his friends were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.

 

He explained how vandals had recently scribbled inflammatory words on the wall of their meeting place. 

 

Now, the sergeant said, they needed to find a new and secretive place of worship.  "Why not meet in our chapel?" I asked.

 

My boss nodded at the sergeant, inviting full disclosure. 

 

"We are a small circle of Wiccans," the sergeant said.  In case you're wondering, some Wiccans, but not all, are witches. Honestly, they are known as a peaceful bunch and are recognized as a legitimate religion. 

 

They take their traditions from pre-Christian history but became a religion as recently as the mid-1900s. They practice so-called "white magic" and recognize male and female deities. They aren't devil worshipers, as the vandals likely believed them to be. Wiccans don't even believe in the devil. 

 

If you question why Protestant chaplains should come to the aid of a pagan group, you wouldn't be alone. After all, Wiccans are a far cry from my Baptist brand or my boss's Methodist practice. Hartwell and I shared reasonable tension over the idea of helping Wiccans. 

 

But we also shared a pledge called the oath of office. During the 28 years I served as a chaplain, I solemnly swore at least five times to "…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." 

 

"Defend the Constitution?" you may ask. Exactly how does a chaplain defend the Constitution when the Geneva Convention prohibits him from carrying a gun?

 

I find the answer in the constitutional amendment that kicked off this whole Land-of-the-Free stuff. It's numeral 1 — "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." 

 

"Yes, sergeant," my commander promised. "We will help you find a place, a conference room perhaps, or a large office. We want you to be safe."  In our next staff meeting, Hartwell elicited suggestions from his 20-person chapel staff regarding a place for the Wiccans. He made it clear that if we exclude room for any faith, we exclude room for all faiths. 

 

He challenged his commissioned officers to "faithfully discharge the duties of the office…" by safeguarding the Wiccans' first amendment right to freely exercise their religion.  Our boss told us that chaplains must defend the Constitution by protecting the religious rights of all, even those we disagree with. We would stand with the Wiccans, he promised. We would support the atheist. And, according to the Geneva Convention, we would even allow an enemy combatant his place of worship. 

 

"Had Hartwell been bewitched?" you ask.

 

Why stand with those whose faith practice is so drastically different than ours? Because at the end of the day if we refuse to stand with them, we will most surely stand alone in future days. 

 

By the way, our chaplains came up with an easy solution for the Wiccans. We found an understanding commander who allowed the group to meet inside his conference room during off-duty hours. 

 

Simple solution. No magic to it.

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Column excerpted from my latest book, "Tell it to the Chaplain." 

Discounted versions of all my books can be found on Amazon by searching for "Norris Burkes." Autographed copies can be obtained on my website www.thechaplain.netor by sending a check for $20 for each book to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.  Sign up to receive this weekly column by email at www.thechaplain.net/newsletter/ or send me your email address to comment@thechaplain.net.       

 

 

June 27 weekend 2025 spirituality column

 

Good Marriages Require Sweat Work.

 

Wedding season is in full bloom in local parks and downtown churches, I've seen the lovely dresses spilling from stretch limos, flowers flowing, and jewelry sparkling.

 

Looking at this outside view, I see the signs that the couple spent countless hours sweating the details of their lavish affair.

 

But long before this summer spectacular, I hope someone has asked the couple this question:

 

"You've prepared for the special day, but what have you done to consider the lifetime you are committing to?"

 

It's a question I always asked the couple in my role as officiant and premarital counselor. But it was the questions the couple asked of me that sometimes threw me off guard. 

 

For instance, just a few weeks before a wedding, I once had a groom-to-be toss me a "by-the-way bomb." 

 

"My fiancée wants to omit the promise, 'Till death do us part.' Would that be a deal breaker for the ceremony?" 

 

Deju vu. It was the same question from a bride-to-be who asked me to change the promise to read, "Till love do us part." 

 

I told both couples, "I really have to stick with the unabridged format."

 

The first couple responded by finding another chaplain. The latter couple dissolved their marriage when the groom left on a Navy cruise and the bride parted to go with a land lover. 

 

Unfortunately, marriage counseling is far less comedic and much more frustrating.

 

The most frustrating thing is that I feel like I have been blessed with a marriage that I cannot clone in others. 

 

A good marriage is a complicated dish, and I don't have the recipe, or I'd publish it.  Often, I've come home from a difficult counseling case, and I'll hold my wife tight.

 

There is no greater priority than my marriage, because I believe God gave marriage to mankind as the closest equal to unconditional love. Despite God's intention for marriage, many are willing to take the risk of making marriage analogous to hell. 

 

While working as a hospital chaplain, a respiratory therapist burst into my office, "Chaplain, Chaplain! She said 'yes!'" 

 

"She" was another therapist who'd just accepted his wedding proposal after two years of dating.

 

I knew them well enough to assume their biggest challenge would be to quit smoking. Despite what respiratory therapists witness, some still smoke like chimneys. 

 

He heralded the news from floor to floor until he arrived on the bottom floor — literally and figuratively. His last stop was the nurses' station where his old girlfriend was the shift manager.

 

She invited him into a supply closet where her congratulatory "hug" went much farther than it should have. In a hot Texas minute, a two-year relationship went up in smoke.

 

Hospital administration congratulated them both with unpaid vacations. 

 

When I've seen people like these therapists risking something so precious, I'm often left shaken. It makes me try to define and categorize what I have in a vain attempt to keep it and control it. I wish it worked that way. 

 

I am not entirely sure what my wife and I have. It's the kind of love that continues, whether I burn the toast or burn my temper. It's a love that tells me I'm forgiven before I ask. It's the kind of love described in our wedding vow that "halves a sorrow and doubles a joy." 

 

Like many couples, we sometimes go to bed dead tired, sometimes too tired for the fun I seek and too tired for the prayers she wants. But we rarely are too tired to talk out our day and absolutely never too tired for our three good night kisses and "I love you." 

 

Still, maybe there is a thing that I know about marriage that respiratory therapists also know about smokers.

 

Therapists, who watch smokers die, know they are no less likely to become smokers.

 

Ministers, who watch marriages die, aren't any less likely to divorce. It takes work to quit smoking, and it takes work to make marriages successful. 

 

So, at the end of the day, I realize there is something Freudian about the way my fast fingers often seem to mistype "sweetheart" into "sweatheart." 

 

The typo is a great reminder that a good marriage takes a lot of work and spiritual sweat.  Good marriages require honest heart work, but most especially real sweat work.

 

 

"I love you Sweat-heart!"

 

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Sign up to receive this weekly column by email at www.thechaplain.net/newsletter/ or send me your email address to comment@thechaplain.net.

 

All of Norris's books can be ordered on Amazon. Autographed copies can be obtained on his website www.thechaplain.netor by sending a check for $20 for each book to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.

 

 

June 20 weekend 2025 spirituality column

Taking Faith for a Pivotal Spin

 

Imagine taking a virtual plane ride today and meeting me in San Francisco. I pick you up outside the terminal and drive you 30 minutes south to Moffett Federal Airfield, formally known as Moffett Navy Air Station.

 

I flash my military ID and we slide easily past the Smokey-Bear-hatted federal guards.  Just a quarter mile ahead, we pull curbside and walk across the lawn to the Moffett Chapel. In 2014, the chapel was restored to its original Spanish Colonial Mission church design found throughout California

 

I'm comfortable here. This is where, in 1994, I assumed my first Air Force active duty chaplain assignment. Three of us replaced the Navy chaplains when their branch vacated the base, or in naval terms, "Secured the watch."

 

Come inside with me for a moment. There's something I want to show you.

 

With a borrowed a key from our host, an Air National Guard chaplain, we easily walk through the double doors and into the foyer.

 

You take a sudden pause, breathless before walls of stained-glass windows. I explain that they are a story-in-glass highlighting the interfaith traditions of the Navy and Marine Corps.

 

But I didn't bring you here to admire the windows. We walk past the pews and onto the podium. We will pause reverently at the Protestant altar. Centered on the table is a Bible and glimmering cross. To the right and left, there are candles and offering plates. 

 

I've brought you here to show you what's behind all this.

 

We step forward into an alcove or recessed space where a larger cross is affixed on the wall aside banners that proclaim faith.

 

Oddly, I ask you to push on the cubby walls.

 

You're astonished that it moves.

 

With my assistance, we rotate what seems like a jumbo version of the lazy Susan contained in your kitchen cabinet.

 

Suddenly, we are standing under a crucifix surrounded by saint statues.

 

Voilà, there it is. Like a moving wall from a haunted house, we're standing in a Catholic church.

 

I push again, and we are share a Jewish altar with the Torah.

 

You say, "This is nice chaplain, but I'm undecided about faith. I suppose I'm spiritual, but not really religious." 

 

"No problem," I say. "Give that wall another push."

 

You do and are relieved to find yourself in neutral space. Nothing on the walls. No religion here.

 

Why have I brought you for a ride on the "Lazy" Altar?

 

To illustrate of how one might make a choice for faith.

 

No, it's not as simple as gyrating the Wheel of Fortune or spinning the theological bottle to determine where your doctrinal affections will lie.

 

You might begin the journey on one of the traditional altars of our fathers. But it may also take a spin in another direction, landing aside that of our spouse. And it's also legitimately OK to spin faith into something that represents our own journey. Or maybe you don't see faith has having finite definitions, so we choose to blend the moving altars.

 

But whatever you choose, deciding on faith is a serious business that requires us to become comfortable with the tensions that faith presents.

 

For instance, how does one explain the love of God in the midst of so much tragedy? Can you deal with the discrepancies of faith and the hypocrites that inhabit all faiths and philosophies? Can we repent of the sins of organized religions while at the same time reinforcing the humanitarian good they do?

 

I believe it's possible to keep the faith of our parents, but we can change out the theological accessories. For me, I follow the protestant faith of my father, but my worship isn't confined to a hymnal or a pew. Moreover, it means, that I accept his faith, but reject the bigotry sometimes found in evangelical faith.

 

For you, it might mean keeping your faith in the Crucified Christ displayed on the crucifix, but soundly rejecting the sins of the Fathers. It might involve rebuilding a place of worship that holds all women in high regard and safely shelters the children.

 

And if you are rotating the altar in search of generic worship, it doesn't mean that your new faith has to be cold, politically correct, and without feeling and humanity. It might involve a move toward inclusion of the conservative right side of the church aisle.

 

Finally, if your faith journey ever takes flight toward the San Francisco Bay Area, stop by Moffett Field Chapel and ask the "Smoky Hats" if they will let you take your faith for a spin. 

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This column is excerpted from my book "Tell it to the Chaplain." 

 

Sign up to receive this weekly column in your email at www.thechaplain.net/newsletter  or send me your email address to comment@thechaplain.net. 

 

All my books can be ordered on Amazon. Autographed copies can be obtained on my website www.thechaplain.net or by sending a check for $20 for each book to 10566 Combie Rd. Suite 6643 Auburn, CA 95602.