After a 5 day hospital stay and surgery, I was thankful for my medical insurance. Without it, I would have faced a bill in excess of $50,000!  Insurance is in place for things we hope never happen – accidents, fires,… Continue reading

My Mom, who is critically ill, called me to her bedside at 2:30 am.  She was feeling anxious in her illness, the darkness of morning’s small hours bringing on an acute sense of loneliness. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered. So,… Continue reading

I like doing what I want to do, when I want to do it. I like spending my time in ways that I find personally pleasing. I enjoy using my money to buy things for myself. I do not like… Continue reading

Studies repeatedly show that kids who regularly get to pull up to a family dinner table do better in school, stay out of trouble, and form more lasting relationships. Kids who regularly have supper with Mom and Dad are significantly… Continue reading

With each passing year, we accumulate memories in our mental attic; some carefully tended as treasures, others locked away like classified documents! When my adult children come home to visit inevitably around the table the phrase is heard, “I remember… Continue reading

By nature and experience, I am deeply suspicious of institutional power!  In almost every instance that I can remember, when a group of people is handed authority without a system of checks and balances in place, that power is soon… Continue reading

Recently I re-discovered a book, The Jesus I Never Knew, originally published by Philip Yancey in 1995. Yancey writes about how we re-make Jesus into our own image which steals His majesty and diminishes our faith!  “The more I studied… Continue reading

Eugene Peterson writes of visiting a Benedictine monastery in New Mexico’s desert. As he walked by the cemetery to lunch, he noted an empty grave.  “Did one of the brothers just die?” he asked one of the monks. “No, that’s… Continue reading

Compared to really ‘knowing Christ,’ being religious is easy.  Fulfilling a set of obligatory rituals, attending meetings, and giving contributions to our church can soothe our minds, making feel as though we are ‘all right’ with the Lord.  There will… Continue reading

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