Posts from March 2023
March 29, 2023
Dear Friends, I’m sure you, like me, have been saddened and sobered by the news from Nashville this week. My heart sank on Monday morning when I got in my car and heard the somber voices of news reporters confirming the shooting deaths of three young children, and later, the deaths of three adults at a Christian school. Later, as I saw the picture of one of the victims, Hallie Scruggs and her family, the grief deepened. All of us ache with…
MARCH 22, 2023
Dear Friends, See if you can spot the issue here. “We worship a living God. Not one locked up in the Scripture of 2,000 years ago.” That sentiment was voiced some years ago by a protestant clergyman, who went on to say “What I love about believing in a living God is that I believe God is constantly revealing God’s self to us over time, and with each succeeding generation, we come a little closer to understanding the mind of God.” The clergyman’s words…
MARCH 15, 2023
Dear Friends, For years, when people thought about etiquette, the name that came to mind first was Emily Post. Her 1922 book Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home quickly became a best seller and was the go-to manual for how to behave in polite society. Her daily newspaper column on etiquette made her a household name. There was a time when, if you wanted to be a respected member of high society, a rite of passage involved attending a “finishing…
MARCH 8, 2023
Dear Friends, My wife has suffered more in life that I have. She has given birth. Five times. And she has had kidney stones. She tells me that while both events are excruciating, she’d much rather give birth than have a kidney stone. At least you have a child and not just a jagged quarter inch mineral deposit to show for all your pain! This week I read about work done by pediatric researches in 2017 in Philadelphia. Using an artificial womb – what they called…
MARCH 1, 2023
Dear Friends, Last Sunday, we looked at Jesus’ first trial before Pontius Pilate, where Jesus explained that what Pilate was most worried about (an insurrection) wasn’t what Jesus had in mind, since His kingdom is a different kind of kingdom – a “not of this world” kind of kingdom where bearing witness to truth, not coercion by force, is how the kingdom functions. And I made the point that in addition to commissioning us to also bear witness to truth as His…