One of my pastor friends has a pretty powerful call story. There was a time late in his college life when he struggled profoundly with the meaninglessness of life. It got to the point that he began to despair life itself. He was not a Christian at this time. Then one Sunday morning, somehow, someway, […]
I recently read a magazine article entitled, “Drifting Toward Hope” by a man named Vinh Chung. As a small child, Chung was a refugee from Vietnam – who set out with his family on a small boat. Somehow they were rescued at sea, and his family was taken in by a Lutheran church in Arkansas. […]
The Reverend King Duncan once told about a letter that appeared in The Catholic Digest. A mother wrote that she was just finishing up a load of laundry, heading back upstairs when her kindergarten-aged daughter presented her deepest theological question. “Mommy,” she asked, “if it were the end of the world, and everyone was getting […]
There’s a Peanuts cartoon where Lucy demands that Linus change TV channels and then threatens him with her fist if he doesn’t. “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over? Asks Linus. “These five fingers,’ says Lucy. “Individually they are nothing, but when I curl them together like this into […]
A friend once passed onto me the story of the Cherokee’s right of passage from a boy to a man. A father took his boy into the forest, blindfold him, and left him alone. The boy was required to sit on a stump all night without removing the blindfold until the rays of the morning […]
Today I would like to say a special word of thanks to those of you who have supported the Dial Hope Foundation with a financial donation. Your gifts make this ministry possible! There is an old story about a man who dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the Pearly Gates and […]
When I was right out of seminary in my first call, a wise elder came to see me and ask about my prayer life. I was honest and told him I try to fit it wherever I can. He challenged me on that, “You know,” he said, “we’re all given the same amount of time […]
There is an Old Testament scholar, Gerhard Von Rad, who claims that the whole idea of faith for Israel came out of the dangerous contexts of war. Think about where Israel is geographically located. They were in the perfect bridge position between Europe / Asia and Africa. And they were always under threat from foreign […]
I was recently reading something about Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen related to using the technique of art therapy for people who have experienced great loss. Apparently, she spent some time helping a twenty-four-year-old young man who had to have one of his legs amputated to stop the spread of bone cancer. This young man was […]
Today, I am deeply grateful for those of you who have supported the Dial Hope Foundation with a financial donation. Hope reaches others because of you. Thank you! In his book Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton wrote, “The thing I mean can be seen in children when they find a game or joke they especially enjoy. […]
