Caught a bit of a CNN feature last night called “The Person Who Changed My Life”. It had been advertised for some time on the network as “CNN’s most well-known faces introduce us to the people who had a profound impact on the course of their lives.” The idea intrigued me, in part, because of […]
I don’t remember the first time I heard about Jonah. But looking back, I can see how differently his short story has played out in my imagination over the course of a lifetime. Early on, it was about a man who was swallowed by “a whale”. At some point I learned that it was a […]
A Christmas weekend marked by unseasonably violent weather and the emotions of caring for the needs of loved ones reflect, as Regina and Steve wrote yesterday, a realism we cannot escape. The embodying of the God of the universe in the flesh of a baby can sound so much like a child’s story—vaguely related to the […]
In past Christmases I’ve written about how much I love listening over and over to “Mary Did You Know” by Kenny Rogers and Wynonna Judd. This year one of my co-workers asked me if I’d heard the Pentatonix version also on You Tube. Once again we’ve all come to this day from many places. Some of our […]
We’ve talked in the past about riddles. I think my favorite is: The poor have it. The rich need it. If you eat it you die. What is it? As we all know, riddles work by play on words; by layers of double meaning or ambiguity understood by the speaker but not revealed to the hearer. […]
Down through history, and all over the world, thanksgiving festivals have given communities a chance to thank the God or gods who gave them another harvest. Such celebrations have been more than expressions of gratefulness for personal health, wealth, marriage, children, and happiness. They have been opportunities for neighbors to celebrate together their shared good […]
My guess is that most of us have been around long enough to hear questions asked either to avoid or find answers. For example, If the law of God is written on our hearts, as Paul says, why do we need the Scriptures of Moses or Jesus? Or, if all law is fulfilled in one, […]
In the last post I mentioned a couple of books that take up the question of why the best news the world has ever heard is so often heard as bad news. In Simply Good News, author N.T. Wright considers some important questions like— Why would we refer to information that’s been around for thousands […]
Words spoken or written have a backstory. So does everyone and everything. Without some understanding of what caused an event, or where a person has come from, it’s hard to make much sense of anything or anybody. That’s not to imply that anyone can collect all of the data, DNA, or background information that we […]
As some of you have noticed, I have not been posting or commenting as often on this blog which is no longer connected to Our Daily Bread Ministries (formerly RBC Ministries). Part of the reason for the change is that, on reaching the age of 65 (three years ago), I decided it was time for […]
