To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. On April 11, 2009, Susan Boyle appeared as contestant #43212 on Britain’s Got Talent. Expectations were low. She was a frumpy-looking, 47-year-old single woman from Scotland who had grown up with eight siblings and admitted she had never been kissed – not exactly the kind of person likely to give Taylor Swift a run… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. “Metaphysics” is such a cool word. It connotes a journey into life’s most interesting and important questions: What is the nature of reality, and why is there anything here at all? When we consider the origin of the word, however, it’s hard not to laugh. Literary editors who were trying to organize the texts… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa displays the most beguiling smile in the history of painting. For that matter, hers may be the most famous smile in human history. Period. Mysteries abound. No one knows with certainty the identity of the young Italian woman who sat for Leonardo sometime between 1503 and 1506. Nor can… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. If you’re looking for drama and emotion, you wouldn’t normally hang out at a convention of Bible scholars. But the meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature at San Antonio in 2016 produced a moment that those in attendance are likely to remember for a long time. Richard Hays, one of the world’s leading… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. “I think this is the neatest gift you have ever given me.” My wife spoke those words to me about 25 years ago on Christmas Day. While every husband yearns to hear such praise, what Mary Sue had just unwrapped was a 16-inch blade Stihl chainsaw. She was beaming. Mary Sue grew up loving tools. … Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. When most people think of Mary Poppins, they smile. They picture the warm-hearted and charming Julie Andrews starring in the Disney adaptation of P.L. Travers’ famous children’s book. The English nanny, who is “practically perfect in every way,” is blessed with a magic compass, bottomless bag, and an umbrella that allows… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. “A picture is worth a thousand words,” according to the old adage. If that’s so, it’s difficult to calculate how many words it would take to express the worth of one of the most extraordinary pictures in human history. It’s called the Hubble Deep Field image. It’s actually a combination of hundreds of separate… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. “Hope is good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies” (Andy, wrongfully imprisoned in The Shawshank Redemption). “Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane” (Andy’s skeptical friend Red, who’s been in that same prison for… Read more »
To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. The month of January is named for the Roman god Janus. Janus was one weird-looking dude. He was customarily portrayed with two faces. One face was looking toward the past, while the other was pointed toward the future. Janus thus became the Roman god of doors, transitions, time, passages, and change itself. He has… Read more »
Words cannot express what a privilege it has been to be part of your mornings the past twelve months. As in past years, I’m going to step back this week and take a five-day “Sabbath rest.” Morning reflections will return next Monday, January 2. Until then, may God bless you as you ponder his gifts of grace during the past year, and the… Read more »
