Jan 29, 2023 | Pondering and Kindling
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...
Jan 22, 2023 | Pondering and Kindling
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...
Jan 16, 2023 | Pondering and Kindling
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 —...
Jan 9, 2023 | Pondering and Kindling
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...
Jan 4, 2023 | Pondering and Kindling
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...
Jan 2, 2023 | Pondering and Kindling
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...
