If you've been following this blog at all, you know that I'm an enormous fan of the fiction of Ann Patchett. State Of Wonder and Bel Canto are two of the most beautiful and most engaging novels I've read in years.In The Getaway Car, a little e-reader memoir...
We preachers value the responses that people have to our preaching.After all, most of us didn't go into this so that our words could vanish into thin air, never to be heard, much less considered, again. Yet even the best preachers (so I'm told) get all kinds of...
What form of communication, exactly, is a sermon? Is it written or spoken? Heard or seen? Inspirational, educational, or informational? Is it a work of art or a medium of instruction?Really, does a good sermon elicit the same kind of response...
My mother, Betty X. Davis, just published a story called "The Last Bicycle" in the July/August edition of Spider Magazine, a highly regarded periodical for children.Set in the French town of Uzaire in the waning days of World War II, "The Last Bicycle"...
In preparation for tomorrow's annual observance of Independence Day, I thought that I'd take a retrospective look at what the Fourth of July celebrations have been like through the years.1. When I was 5 and watching a fireworks show at a local golf...
About every twelve months or so, we have a medical emergency during one of the worship gatherings at Good Shepherd.Over the years, we have had mild strokes, cardiac distresses, diabetic episodes, and fainting spells.It happened again yesterday at 11:30, as a dear...
My confession about angels is that I'm not much interested in them.So the preacher to the Hebrews threw me for a loop when by talking so much about them.Until I finally got what he was saying. Then I realized his brilliance.And I can't wait to share it with...
We all have impulses. And many of those impulses are not necessarily healthy.Impulses to speak when silence is the better option.Impulses to spend when saving is the wiser choice.Impulses to sex when either abstinence or faithfulness is the path of...
While at last week's Annual Conference, I also attended the luncheon for graduates of Asbury Seminary who serve in Western North Carolina.The seminary was begun in 1923 with a handful of pastors-in-training gathering in the remote Kentucky hamlet of...
We've all had those moments when a song we long thought said one thing actually sings something quite different.I had a friend one time who insisted against all evidence to the contrary that the Rolling Stone's ballad "Angie" was in fact called "I Inject."Or the...