As friends and family gather near to celebrate Christmas, let us remember to revere each person, no matter how difficult we find them to be … If we all remembered this one thing, our holiday gatherings would surprise us: “A procession of angels passes before each human being wherever he or she goes, proclaiming: Make way […]

My three kids are coming home on Saturday … One from New York City where she works, one from Washington, DC where she works, and one from Philadelphia where he just finished finals. They all fly in to Iowa together on the same flight out of O’Hare. I can’t wait. I have enjoyed every minute […]

We have a great version of the entire Messiah we love to listen to during the Advent and Christmas season. In fact, we had to buy 2 CDs so both my husband and I could listen in our cars, lest an Advent fight erupt. The very first words sung are these: “Comfort … comfort ye, […]

This morning at our staff meeting we will be answering the question, “How do you keep Christ in Christmas?” Now, that is a good question - don’t get me wrong. But I wonder sometimes if the main character in that question (you) is wrong. I wonder sometimes if the better question is, “How do you […]

Just this today ... a little gift from a brilliant writer ... Just as some of Jesus’ first-century followers could not credit the presence of the risen Christ, so our own blindness, habit, and fear form a kind of constant fog that keeps us from seeing, and thereby believing in, the forms that grace takes […]

Cultural anthropologist Edward T. Hall says, Time talks. It speaks more plainly than words. The message it conveys comes through loud and clear. Because it is manipulated less consciously, it is subject to less distortion than the spoken language. It can shout the truth where words lie. If this is true, how we use time […]