The blinking cursor greets me.  “How can I find peace” I type slowly, feeling a little silly. Here I am “Googling,” a nonsensical word that would have inspired laughs and guffaws 10 years ago. Today, it’s a part of our eeryday lexicon, a verb and a noun all in one. I ask the ghost in the machine the question.  It takes Google all of .39 seconds to find more than 860 million results.  That won’t do me much good.  ... Read more

Chasing the Wind The Search for Meaning in a Meaningless World Replacing God Intro I am constantly on the look out for people that I can relate to.  I smile when I see a guy reach over and begin nibbling on his wife’s dessert.  I have a link to the person who catches a nap during a boring meeting.   I can relate to the man who walks through a mall like he is a death march. Bill Murray – Groundhog... Read more

It looked bad, as he clutched his wrist and grimaced in pain. Joshua,was just 11, and he was all boy. He had been stunt-jumping on his bicycle and had “biffed it,” adolescent talk for “had a major accident and lived to tell.” This was a familiar path we trod to the Emergency Room. I don’t how many, but it was at least 10.  And we even had a nurse in the house to mitigate some of the emergencies, but still... Read more

Do you think that your identity is being sucked away by the culture? Do you hurt for a world that is set up to fail, and you don’t see any answers? Then read on...Estonia is an country in the Baltic region that for much of it’s history has actually been part of someone else. The list of occupiers is a long one, as they were pawns in power struggles between Vikings, Swedes, Normans, Germanics, and a host of others. During World... Read more

Isaiah 58:10 New International Version (NIV) 10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,<sup value='(A)’>then your light<sup value='(B)’> will rise in the darkness,    and your night will become like the noonday. Read more

Where Does Success Come From? by David Rupert I remember my first raise. I was working as a busboy and I got a bump in pay from $2.10 an hour to $2.20 an hour. It was a merit raise, given to me from my boss for a job well done. I was riding high, and my ever-wet rag wiped tables with new enthusiasm. God didn’t get any praise that day. In my mind, I worked hard and I deserved that raise.... Read more

“Linda?”  She heard my surprise as I approached her behind the counter at the locally-owned fast food restaurant. This was the same white-haired woman from my church with the smile that matched her oversized glasses, the lady who handed out bulletins and fussed over the communion cups and smoothed the curtains in the sanctuary after the wind tousled them.  Here she was with her trademark infectious, enthusiastic spirit, only now she was asking people what they wanted for lunch. I stumbled... Read more