There are consequences of what we have done, how we have lived, and we don't escape those consequences. I came across a marvelous expression of it in my Bible reading recently. I was reading from the Revised Standard Version, and this is what that translation says:...
George Santos. We have heard or read that name often if we have listened to T.V. news, or read a newspaper in the past week. His name first appeared in national news when he won a seat in U.S. Congress as a California Representative. But it soon began…charges about...
We hardly go through a week without asking, “Where is God in all of this?” It came dramatically last week when the tapes were released picturing five policemen senselessly beating a man to death. Even with the questions about police brutality, race relations, justice,...
The newspaper headline was attention-getting: HOW CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT IS HUMANITY? Each January for the past 75 years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published the Doomsday Clock. The meaning of that, if not obvious, can be guessed. The clock suggests...
Our community was painfully rocked last week by the crash of a plane carrying five leaders (four pastors and one lay person) of one of the churches of our city. The Lead Pastor was the only person who survived. Questions have been swirling, especially in the Christian...
Joe E. Trull tells of a primitive tribe located deep in the South American jungles. Anthropologists learned the most important role within the tribe was the "keeper" of the flame. Since fire is so precious -- and takes such effort to recreate -- one member is...
Truth gets our attention in all sorts of ways. A Chicago suburbanite put on a last spurt of speed to catch his train but missed it. A bystander remarked, “If you’d run a little faster you would have made it.” “No,” the suburbanite replied, “it wasn’t a case of...
As a preacher and writer, I use a lot of words, hopefully most of them simple with meanings well known. Lately, maybe because of my age, I find myself doubting the way I have spelled a word, and I check it out. Most of the time I use my cell phone, but as a creature...
It was hard to believe: 162-year sentence deemed excessive. That was the headline (Commercial Appeal, Dec. 16, 2022). The story was of a man, Courtney Anderson, who in 2020 was sentenced to 162 years in prison for repeated non-violent offenses. I found it difficult to...
As a preacher and writer, I use a lot of words, hopefully most of them simple and the meanings well known. Lately, maybe because of my age, I find myself doubting the way I have spelled a word, and I check it out. Sometimes I use my cell phone, but as a creature of...