There is an old Dennis the Menace Comic in which Dennis’s friend Margery is scolding him as he’s talking to another friend. She says, “Shame on you! Don’t you know God hears everything you say in this room?” In the next frame, Dennis says to his buddy, “Let’s go into the kitchen.” Most of us […]
Some time ago, I was reading about Mr. Rogers. One of his favorite quotes was from the poet Kenneth Koch, “You aren’t only the age you are – but you are all the ages you’ve ever been.” I like that thought. Sometimes we despair of our past and can’t let go of mistakes we’ve made. […]
Sometime back, the Rev. King Duncan told a story about a man named Jim Reid. Jim moved to Florida to work for Walt Disney World after it first opened in the early 1970s. He quickly picked up SCUBA diving as a hobby, and in his spare time began diving old shipwrecks, searching for hidden treasures. […]
In the Talmud, there is a story about a rabbi who met the prophet Elijah in a crowded market. The rabbi seized the opportunity to ask Elijah a question, “Who here among all who are present is most likely to experience eternal life?” Elijah pointed toward two humble unpretentious-looking men. The rabbi then confronted the […]
Near the end of his life, Joshua gathered the elders and the people after they have finally settled in the promised land. He says to them: Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you […]
I remember when I was in seminary, I had a year-long class serving under a chaplain at one of the major city hospitals in Atlanta. And once a week I had to walk past the halls of the nee-natal intensive care unit. More than once I wondered: Where is God? Maybe you have looked at […]
Sometime back a hospice worker named Bronnie Ware wrote an interesting book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. I read a review on the book and it touched me deeply. As a pastor, I have heard people express many of these same regrets near the end of their lives. Those regrets are: I wish I’d […]
At one of my Wednesday night Bible studies, one of our members was telling us about her youth group growing up. She said that her pastor would talk a lot about love. As teenagers, of course, they were all thinking about romantic love. But the pastor clarified: Not romantic love – but agape love – […]
Years ago, I remember hearing about an author who was visiting the United States. One evening, needing to make a call, he found a phone booth. (Do you remember those)? But this phone booth was different from those in his own country. It was beginning to get dark, and he had difficulty finding the number […]
Yesterday I shared that in the Gospel of John, Jesus’ last words from the cross are: It is finished… His human life on earth, finished… His ministry in person, finished… The pain and suffering, finished… But there is more, isn’t there? I have a friend who is about my age, who some years back was […]
