To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Music historians call it Stevie Wonder’s “classic period.” Pop music fans simply call it miraculous. During a four-year span (1972-1976), the Motown singer/composer, who had just turned 21, churned out five albums of extraordinary, even explosive creativity. Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness’ First Finale, and Songs in the… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here On April Fool’s Day, 1975, a drunk awoke in a doorway on Commercial Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His shirt was splattered with his own vomit. A street person had stolen his shoes during the night. As best he could remember, he had been drunk every day for the previous 18… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Last fall I broke the rules at the airport. And I had to pay the price. Just as I was about to retrieve my carryon suitcase following its journey through the scanning machine, a polite man wearing the bright blue shirt of the Transportation Security Administration motioned me to stand back…. Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Pastors sometimes get surprising questions. In his book The Good and Beautiful God, James Bryan Smith recounts a story he heard from his friend, Pastor Jeff Gannon. A young woman called Gannon out of the blue and asked, “May I come to your church?” What a question. “Of course,” said Gannon, who was surprised she… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here A few years ago John Gilbert died at the age of 25 at his home in Paradise, California. When he was five years old, John was diagnosed with Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy. That meant that during the course of his few years, John had progressively lost more and more of the physical… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Does God seem to have something against Florida this fall? The Sunshine State had only begun to recover from its encounter with Hurricane Helene two weeks ago when another monster cyclone formed in the Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Milton is ravaging central Florida even as this reflection arrives in your inbox,… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here What’s the most common element in the universe? That’s easy. Not even close. Chemists estimate that 92% of all the atoms in the cosmos are hydrogen – the simplest element on the periodic table, comprised of one proton, one neutron, and one electron. What’s number two? Also a no-brainer. It’s helium,… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here In his book Messy Spirituality, author and pastor Mike Yaconelli recounts the story of a home remodeling project. He and his wife decided to redo the tile in their kitchen. Their house, which was situated in a rugged part of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains, was more than 60 miles from the… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Denmark has never been considered a center for global cinema. Only a handful of Danish movies, in fact, have ever received an Academy Award. But the first one to accomplish that – Babette’s Feast, winner of the 1987 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (based on a story by Danish writer… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Some of the most celebrated names in spiritual history are martyrs – men and women who surrendered their lives instead of surrendering their faith. Church tradition suggests that 11 of the original 12 apostles met violent ends. Courageous martyrs also figure prominently in the stories of Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. In the Middle… Read more »
