On a recent flight from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Dallas, I read the lead article in the January 2013 issue of American Way Magazine. It was about the Italian classical music singer Andrea Bocelli. Bocelli has tremendous natural talent, but he also has worked hard to hone and cultivate it. The result is 22 albums [...]

Two summers ago I led a group of students on a travel seminar to South Africa for 2 weeks. Half the time we spent at a convent/ retreat center near Cape Town. My assigned quarters were in the main building, right across from the business office and gift shop. Before I left I bought a [...]

I got a message on my office voice mail yesterday afternoon from a colleague. She had taken over as the chair of a committee I led last year. “I have a question about what went on last fall so we don’t reinvent a wheel that is already rolling. Please call me so you can fill [...]

“What is a proverb you remember from growing up?”I began the morning by asking the thirty people seated around tables with their Bibles and notebooks open. They were from United Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ and Episcopalian backgrounds and had gathered in the fellowship hall at St Paul’s United Methodist Church, Houston for the Perkins [...]

Airborne! It’s Friday night and I’m in a Holiday Inn in Houston, Texas. Tomorrow morning I’m teaching a daylong course on wisdom for daily living from the Bible at a large United Methodist Church down the street. Sitting on the runway in Dallas waiting to take off earlier this evening, I groaned to myself as [...]

I just got back from a family road trip to Austin, Texas to visit our oldest daughter Melissa. My husband brought his extensive collection of Christmas music. I debated writing a lighthearted blog about all the people who have made Christmas albums through the years who shouldn’t have. Examples might include N Sync’s “Christmas at [...]

I was sitting at my desk in my home office yesterday morning working down my things to do today list.  Job #1 was finishing the syllabus for a course on storytelling I’m teaching next semester. To my usual at home outfit of jeans and t shirt I had added a blue snuggy and an afghan. [...]

I took my car into the dealer yesterday for two small problems having to do with the gas gauge and the battery. The little yellow gas tank icon begins to blink the day after I fill it up. Even though I know it’s full, I begin to feel anxious. I think it’s just messing with [...]

I heard a preacher give a sermon on death one time called “Death’s vehicle.” He waxed eloquent as he informed the congregation: “Everybody’s death has a vehicle that takes them from this life over the bridge to the next. For some it’s cancer. For others it’s an accident. Or a heart attack. Or violence. Or [...]

“And seeing that he had been lying there a long time, Jesus asked him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’” (John 5: 6) Note that Jesus is not asking  “Do you want to be cured?”  Although of course we do! We all want to be cured of all ailments, all problems, and all negative [...]

Knowing that he had been lying there a long time, Jesus asked him “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6) What was the man’s malady? Apparently some sort of paralysis that left him unable to move his legs or at least able to move them only with great difficulty. The man doesn’t point [...]