A quick perusal of church newsletters and bulletins over the holidays left us wondering why so many announcements look like this menu board. If you arrive hungry or thirsty, good luck finding your way quickly to the items that meet your need. (By the way, “pancake...
We are not suggesting that we bring “Joy to the World” back for one more rousing encore after the weeks just past. But we are thinking about the absolute joy of being Christ’s Church in this moment. It isn’t easy to talk about joy, as the...
The ten most popular Christmas carols include Silent Night, Away in the Manger, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, The First Noel, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear … but alas, Once in Royal David’s City only clocks in at #14. Here are a couple of...
There is a story told about the great country music guitarist, Chet Atkins (1924-2001). One day, Atkins was in a recording session with several inexperienced musicians who struggled to keep up with his genius and creativity. Exhausted and exasperated, one of them finally blurted out,...
The young man had done everything right. He kept the commandments, lived honorably, and when he encountered Jesus, he asked the best possible question: "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Yet when Jesus answered—"Sell what you have, give to the poor, and follow...
In her remarkable poem Obligations 2, Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier invites us to travel down a path of our choosing. It’s notable how each line of the poem draws us down the page, from reaction through action, into the rawness of grief, then finally...
That was the title of a recent column by Bret Stephens. He was talking about the political sphere and how protectionism, America First agendas, and antisemitism, among others, stalk like “moral and intellectual zombies” through our debates about government. But it also seems like an...
Forty years ago, one of us (we’ll leave it to you to identify her) taught juggling in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. From that experience comes the following counterintuitive lesson: juggling isn't a catching skill, it's a throwing skill. When beginners pick up juggling balls, they...
We promise that we won’t mimic a family member who takes a memorable trip and then insists on spending 2+ hours at Thanksgiving narrating a slide show while the turkey gets seriously over-cooked (of course, that’s just a hypothetical scenario). But … on our recent trip...