by DENISE MARIE SIINO on MAY 13, 2014 One of my favorite authors died last month. Gabriel García Márquez was a Colombian-born journalist and author. My introduction to him came in my World Lit I class at Chapman University when we read “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” followed the next year (World Lit II) by […]
Christ has risen…He has risen indeed!!!
Christ has risen…He has risen indeed! This declaration and response resounds throughout Christendom on Easter Sunday…a day I look forward to each year. While the Christmas season holds special meaning for Christians worldwide, Jesus did not ask us to remember His birth. But He did ask us to remember His death, burial and resurrection, which […]
Wisdom
January 6 was Epiphany, the celebration of the Magi’s visit to the Christ child in Bethlehem. I use this occasion each year to spend a little more time than usual meditating on the first four chapters of the book of Proverbs, which I call the “wisdom” chapters because they speak specifically of the value of […]
Christmas Visitation
Lately my life has been like sitting under a canopy out in the middle of the desert, beside a dirt road. Time ekes by very slowly as I wait for the bus to come by to pick me up and take me away from there, but the bus doesn’t come. So I sit and wait, […]
Re-remembering 9/11
I tried talking with my father today about the 9/11 attacks. There have been some wonderful specials on TV recently, and as I tried to relate these to him on a level his Alzheimer’s might allow, I realized he didn’t remember the attacks on America at all. But he was alarmed to think that our […]
Memories
“Memories, may be beautiful and yet…what’s too painful to remember, we simply chose to forget.“ —from The Way We Were Memories certainly can be beautiful or painful. Jack, my husband, plays Ce La Luna Mezz’o Mare (a Sicilian song) on his iPod each morning. Says it reminds him of his father, who used to sing […]
Words that Sting
March 4, 2011 One of the most influential people in my young Christian life, as a new follower of Jesus, was the musician Keith Green. Keith was loved by the Christian masses but not always appreciated by the “formal” church because he was unafraid of sharing God’s truth as he understood it. But no matter […]
God’s Goodness Dissected
February 14, 2011 There is a belief, sometimes unspoken, that God is only good to His faithful. This thinking can lead to a view of God as playing favorites; being uninterested or lacking in compassion; or a cosmic being who engages in mean-spirited punishment. It can also lead to feelings of resentment or shame. A […]
Images from space help us engage with the ‘brotherhood of man’
February 12, 2011 A friend sent me a web link with some images taken from outer space by astronaut Douglas Wheelock. We use the word fantastic often in speech these days, to the point that the true meaning of the word gets lost. Yet it is the perfect word to describe these photos. Fan.tas.tic: [fan-tas-tik]: […]