Irish author and artist Christy Brown was born in 1932 in Dublin, one of 22 children (13 of whom survived) belonging to a bricklayer and his wife. Christy was not like his siblings. His body was ravaged by cerebral palsy. As a child he could not speak. He exercised little control over his muscles. Most observers concluded there was nothing… Read more »
You might say that I married into Daffodil Mania. My wife’s mother, Phyllis, was joyfully fanatical about those perennial bulbs – whether white, yellow, orange, or pastels – that are currently blooming in many parts of America. She once served a term as president of the National Daffodil Society and routinely jetted to various cities to judge flower shows. Gardeners… Read more »
In the book of Numbers, chapter 13, Moses and the people of Israel stand at the threshold of the Promised Land. Behind them lies slavery in Egypt. Ahead lies the land “flowing with milk and honey,” the place God had promised to Abraham. The Lord says to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am… Read more »
During the middle of the twentieth century, Josef Stalin relentlessly tightened his ideological grip on the Soviet Union. Stalin subscribed to the view that religious thought and freedom were obstacles to the birth of the “new man” promised by Marxism – obstacles that could be ground to powder by government intervention. Churches were closed. Outspoken priests were arrested. Worshipers were… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. For a creature that never actually existed, unicorns are very much in fashion. Depending on which dictionary you’re consulting, a unicorn is either a Silicon Valley start-up company worth at least… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. When one of my earliest mentors, Dr. Howard Lindquist, was a young pastor, he visited the home of an older woman who was highly regarded in the community. At one point… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. Indiana, which I have called home for most of my life, is a state divided. It’s all because of a glacier. The Wisconsin Glaciation, which happened about 30,000 years ago, covered… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. Jesus told three parables of redemption – a trio of stories in which something lost is found. They appear back-to-back-to-back in the 15th chapter of Luke. The first is the Parable… Read more »
Throughout Lent, we’re exploring the parables of Jesus – the two dozen or so stories that were his chief means of describing the reality of God’s rule on earth. Back in the 1920s, a Canadian amateur golfer left a lasting mark on the game he loved. It just wasn’t the kind of legacy he had always imagined. David Bernard Mulligan,… Read more »
During the heyday of the Roman Empire, the word of the paterfamilias – the primary male in a local household – was law. Roman households could exceed 100 individuals, including the paterfamilias and his wife, their children and grandchildren, various servants and slaves, and others who found it economically expedient for one reason or another to live under the same… Read more »