Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to... READ MORE >
[Jesus] cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” John 11: 43-44 It is a centuries-old tradition in many Christian denominations to lift up the first Sunday in November... READ MORE >
I ran across a story once about a farmer who was celebrated for growing award-winning sweet corn. Every August he entered his corn in the county fair, and every year it won a blue ribbon. One summer a newspaper reporter came to interview him. In their conversation, he discovered that each spring this farmer generously shared his seed corn with... READ MORE >
A young boy was once walking down a country road on his way home from school. As he passed a neighboring farmhouse he saw the farmer nailing up a sign: Puppies for Sale. He walked over to the man who stood admiring his handiwork and tugged at his pants. “Whattaya want, kid?” the man asked. “I want to buy one... READ MORE >
Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five... READ MORE >
As I write this column, our country is just days removed from an act of terror directed at our Jewish friends, neighbors and family members. On October 27, a man walked into Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh intent on extinguishing as many lives as he could. By the time law enforcement arrived on the... READ MORE >
I’m not sure how you feel about it, but Thanksgiving always makes me feel as if I’m reading the last page of a novel even as I’m looking ahead to the next book on my reading list. Thanksgiving is a watershed of sorts, as we gather to give thanks for both the blessings of the past and the blessings still... READ MORE >
When I struggle to describe the tumultuous times we are living in, a word that comes to mind is Koyaanisqatsi, which in the Hopi language means ‘unbalanced life’ or ‘life in disorder.’ We are living in a state of dissonance with the environment, our neighbors, ourselves, and with God. We are witnessing the unraveling of our culture’s long-respected tradition of... READ MORE >
Fifty-eight dead at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas. Twenty-six dead at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. Eighty-four lives have been lost in these two events in just a matter of a few weeks. And so we grieve. We grieve for the families who will never be whole again. We grieve for children whose nightmares have suddenly become very... READ MORE >
God brought him outsideand said, “Look towardheaven and count the stars,if you are able to countthem.” Then God said to him,“So shall your descendantsbe.”Genesis 15: 5 One of my favorite snippets of scripture is when God comes to Abraham and invites him to imagine that his descendants will one day be like the constellations that fill the night sky. This... READ MORE >
