If you have been following my blog for any length of time then you know I write about people who have impacted my life and recently died. Don Crowley (1932-2015) is one of these individuals. I met Don, a retired Army chaplain (who achieved the rank of colonel with the Army and brigadier general with […]
Those Wise Guys – Finale
As I watched the wise men head for home in my imaginative musings, I was left with a handful of questions to ponder. If the Jewish spiritual leaders were aware of the wise men’s search of the child born King of the Jews – in other words, the Jewish Messiah – why did they not […]
Those Wise Guys – Part 4
Have you ever faced a situation where you had been rehearsing what you would say, only to find that when the time came, your speech fell flat on the floor? This is what I imagine (as I participate in this scene from my rocking chair) happened to the wise men when they finally came face […]
Those Wise Guys – Part 3
The landscape deepened into tones of gray as the wise men on their camels, their entourage in their midst, lumbered along the western road. Knowing that their journey was almost over, the men were anxious to reach their goal—the home of the One born King of the Jews. A crowd of curious onlookers that had […]
Those Wise Guys – Part 2
“Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star as it rose, and have come to worship him,” the wise men said. I love astronomy, though I am a novice. Yet I know that stars don’t move like planets do. Stars are in fact suns in […]
Those Wise Guys – Part 1
I’m talking about those foreign dignitaries who visited the child Jesus in Bethlehem – the story of Epiphany – as described in Matthew 2. This past week, rereading this story again, I did something I have never done before (with this passage of Scripture). I placed myself in the story, like a precocious adolescent who […]
Lovin’ into the Kingdom
A few days ago I posted on Facebook an accusatory single sentence directed at a celebrity whose name I shall refrain from repeating here. I wrote the post at night, in a fit of outrage after hearing a news report of the celebrity’s supposed misdeeds, then went to bed. Early the next morning I had […]
Memory and Forgiveness
A number of years ago a young man was murdered. If this were the slug of a news story, or perhaps the first line of a novel, it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Why was he murdered? Was the murderer caught? Was he convicted, sent to prison? What became of the victim’s family? Let […]
Atonement
Have you ever read the book of Leviticus? All those “offerings” (burnt offering, sin offering, trespass offering, etc.) sound bloody and cold. Even though there are several names for these different offerings, they all boil down to “sin”…that ugly archaic 3-letter word that has no place in a modern society. Or if it does it […]
Resonating with God
I recently purchased for the first time a set of Augustine classical guitar strings. Upon installing them on my guitar, I immediately noticed that when playing an A on the third string, the 5th open A string would also resonate. This phenomenon also occurred with other notes. At first I thought I’d gotten a bad […]