Over the past two days, I reflected on the question of war and our Christian response. Personally, I am more and more aware that the seeds of anger, hate and violence are in every human heart… Those seeds have always been there… since the dawn of civilization… since Cain and Abel… And while you and […]
A few weeks ago, I sat captivated listening to Bob Gamble speak about life in Ukraine, Bob is a Presbyterian missionary who founded This Child Here, a ministry that works with children and youth on the streets in that country. More recently, in the face of the war, his ministry has shifted to help care for […]
Over the past several weeks, the news has been filled with the brutality of war in Gaza. All of this in the wake of the horror of the Hamas terrorist attack on innocent civilians – teenagers and children… It is hard to imagine that kind of cold-hearted hatred… It drags up memories of 9/11… And […]
Today is “All Saints Day.” It is an ancient holiday dating back to around the year 610. It is the day when the church celebrates all those who have come before us in the faith. In 2 Timothy, Paul writes to his young friend and colleague: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first […]
When we were in Scotland last summer, the landscape was dotted with ancient Celtic crosses. I came to love the symbolism. Planted firmly in the ground, they remind us of the great cathedral of earth, sea, and sky, and they point to the deep connection between heaven and earth. The cross itself, of course, is […]
So just a few months ago, I drove my daughter Emily over to Tallahassee and dropped her off to start her freshman year at Florida State. It was hard. It’s already an emotional time, but as we were getting her settled, we realized that she did not pick up her student ID card at orientation. […]
I remember hearing about two different visitors to a particular church on the same Sunday. Both had a similar experience. No one spoke to either one of them, and both left with the feeling that it was an unfriendly congregation. The first visitor decided that he would go back one more time, but resolved that […]
In a church I used to serve, one day a preschooler was walking down the hall with her mother. She saw me coming, pointed at me, and said, “Look Mommy, there goes God!” From time to time we get confused, don’t we? Not just preschoolers but all of us. We allow people or things or […]
You may remember that in 1953 Edmund Hillary was the very first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. What you may not know is that he had a partner in his success. His name was Tenzing Norgay. Not only did Tenzing climb the mountain with him but on the way back down the […]
I’ve often reflected on those places in my life where I tend to notice God’s presence more, where I feel closest to God. I’ve shared with you many times that for me, it is often out on the ocean, the vastness, the great expanse of it all. In kind of a similar way, I have […]
