(Luke 2:1-14) Having a baby is cause for celebration and, in the days before the ultrasound test, it used to carry with it some element of surprise. Would the baby be a boy or a girl? These days, however, most people don’t wait until the child enters the world to announce whether it’s a him…
A LETTER TO BETHLEHEM DESIGN AND SUPPLY Dear sir …. and/or madam, We are excited about your architect’s preliminary plans for our civic memorial honoring the incarnation. We could see at a glance, how wise he/she has been to suggest a hillside site, overlooking the city. The vistas from Meditation Portico – the olive groves,…
(2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16) Home is that place where you feel comfortable, right? Where you can kick off your shoes, maybe (or maybe not, depending on who’s in your house) put your feet up on the coffee table (again, maybe not), and be your whole and full and entire self. But sometimes the emotional place…
(Psalm 126) What brings you happiness? What brings you joy? And do you make a distinction between the two? Many people, myself included, do make a distinction between happiness and joy. Usually those who discuss this distinction say that happiness is a form of contingent joy. Happiness, according to this line of thought, is a…
(Isaiah 40:1-11) More than fifty-five years ago in 1963, a very creative author and illustrator named Maurice Sendak published his now-classic children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are. How many of us remember reading this as a child, or reading it to our own children or grandchildren? It tells the story of a little boy,…
(Isaiah 64:1-9) In early May 2020, Lillian Yu-Feng Hsu, 87, died in an assisted-living facility in White Plains, New York. Of Han Chinese decent, she lived through WWII in China when she was a kid, but later studied medicine in Taiwan. Her next step was a major move to the United States to complete a…
Ephesians 1:15-23) I am fascinated by people’s last words, the thing they choose to leave us with. In some ways, our first words as a child and our last words at death are some of our most important. Only parents record or remember our first words, but history often records our last. Of course, my…
(Psalm 90:1-12) As we approach the holidays, it is inevitable that the shopping calendar takes over. There is something ominous about the countdown to Christmas, where we are constantly reminded of how little time we have left to complete our necessary purchases. Knowing that we only have a certain amount of time brings a sense…
(1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) One of the cruelties of the COVID-19 pandemic has been that a significant number of patients hospitalized with the disease died without loved ones present. It wasn’t that family and friends didn’t want to be there, but that many hospitals kept visitors away — including family members and spouses — to fight…
(Revelation 7:9-17) How many of you follow the daily totals for COVID-19 cases and deaths right now as closely as you did back in March or April? Now, maybe some of you haven’t really followed those numbers from the start so, for you, nothing has changed. But I know that my “analysis,” if you will,…