Sitting in my brother’s kitchen a while back, he asked me “is there a right way to pray?” Before I could answer, he said, “no there isn’t.” “It’s all good,” as a friend of my wife’s would say. CCD theology at its best. I am glad my brother gave me...
Once there was a little girl named Marcie who had a very strange and unusual reaction to Christmas: she didn’t like to receive Christmas presents. Every year when it was time to unwrap the presents under the tree, she would go to her room and wait...
I attended a wedding in New York City by myself well over 40 years ago. So at the reception at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, I was seated at a table of friends of the bride’s family. Since I didn’t know any of them and was suffering...
In the town of Werden in Germany, there’s a stone carving of a lamb on the roof of the Catholic church. That’s an unusual place to put a statue, as few people will see it up there, but in this case the roof was the appropriate location—due to an...
Some years ago a fisherman—someone we’ll call Pete—was in a rowboat out on a bay that connected to the ocean. It was a quiet night, except for a loud-mouthed man on a yacht anchored in the bay; because of his incoherent singing and shouting, it was...
The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. But, should they have been astonished? NO! Unless they had forgotten God’s promise recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy (18:18): I will...
Around Thanksgiving, many of us try to pause and reflect on the things we are grateful for in our lives. Gratitude doesn’t come easy for humans, but on the fourth Thursday in November many of us do our best to try to be grateful, at least for this...
A woman named Bonnie had little experience of family love and support when she was growing up; she had also received no training in religion. Years later, as a single mother of two young children, there were no relatives or friends to assist her, no...
