A Fresh Start?
Is it possible to have a fresh start? Not to drag old hurts and fears into the new year? The red-wigged clown, Frieda, seemed to be saying that as she sprinkled confetti from a “FRESH START” bottle on the surprised crowd gathered around carolers on a cold winter night. Some people backed away, brushing the […]
We Too Can Be Prophets
I used to be the kind of Bible reader who would skim over names and places: Tiberius, Iturea, Lysanias, whatever. I would approach verses such as these* and simply read, ‘Long ago and far away, the word of God came to John…’ But reading this way misses what Luke was very explicitly trying to say: […]
There Will Be Signs…
When I read about Jesus warning his disciples that there will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, distress among nations, and people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world,* I feel like I am reading the newspaper instead of words written two thousand years ago. Every […]
What Can I Give?
As the door slammed, I froze, seeing my keys locked inside our Volvo. Which was built like a tank. Safe. Secure. Very hard to unlock, because the mechanism was a sliding bolt down near the handle. And I was standing, stunned, in a French parking lot near Avignon with two teenage visitors whom I hardly […]