Children Adrift: The Old Testament Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed

It happens to all of us. An old song or movie comes on, and somewhere, out of the depths of your dusty brain, a reflex kicks in. Before you know it, you’re singing words you didn’t know you remembered, or you’re quoting a line right before the actor says it. It’s like muscle memory, hidden deep beneath years of doctor

Curiosity is underrated. In the past one hundred years, many North Americans have undergone a shift in how they’re described and in how they see themselves. We have gone from citizens to consumers. A few years back the hit drama “Mad Men” followed the lives of people in a booming advertising industry in post-World War II America. Citizens may benefit

It’s Monday when most clergy members attempt to hide, read, or decompress. A few with churches large enough to afford a staff prefer post-game analysis on Mondays, parceling out Sabbath follow-up’s and sketching the week ahead. Many pastors enter Monday with a need to refuel – even the extroverts. And while the calendar reads January 29th, it can feel like

It is the time of year when resolutions abound. Or if not resolutions, goals. Maybe goals are too weighty a burden: maybe wishes. It is the time of year when wishes abound. Despite the popularity of making “New Year’s Resolutions” – and despite the popularity of articles detailing how to make resolutions “stick” – most people know that lasting life

In the Christmas stillness, there is hurry. In the Christmas stillness, there is distraction. In the Christmas stillness, there is worry. It is tempting to say, “In the Christmas hurry, there is stillness; in the Christmas distraction, there is stillness; in the Christmas worry, there is stillness.” We wish to take people from their likely experience – bustle, activity, news

Humans are expert excuse-makers.   “Well, GOD, the woman you gave me tempted me, so…that’s why I didn’t listen to you when you told me not to eat anything from that tree.”  “I know I’m not supposed to cut my hair, but…I mean, have you seen Delilah? I’m only human.”  “I’d love to follow you, Jesus, but I have family obligations and an urgent to-do list first.

Recently I read a moving account of one German woman’s actions and the impact that they had. A 92-year-old man living in New Jersey received a three-page letter from her in which she apologized for wrongs long past. Reading it, he wept.  As the article recounts about the letter writer, “Doris Schott-Neuse…told him how her grandfather had acquired Hirschmann’s family home under the Nazis, expressing her shame