Like millions of others here and around the world, my wife and I greet the sunrise of every new day with a familiar list of questions regarding the viral plague enveloping our nation and threatening many others. Has there been any hint of a reduction in the speed of its proliferation or the level of its impact on those infected? Did any of the worst hotspots show any signs overnight that the curve might be flattening? Was there any Continue reading
What If … It All Went Away?
I didn’t grow up going to church, so much of what was in the Bible was new to me, and some of it was really perplexing. For instance, why in the world would any reasonable, sober parent ever name a kid some of the names I kept running into in the Old Testament. The first time I ever said Habakkuk’s name out loud it sounded like somebody was caught between a sneeze and a bad hiccup. Who would do that to a kid? Continue reading
A Time for Others
One of the many things we praise God for in this trying time is that Covid-19 cannot be transmitted through digital contact. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m sitting here at my computer with my whole face hung out, uncovered and unprotected, but in spite of that, we’re not putting your health in danger. Even if I sneeze all over my keyboard, you’re still safe. And speaking of keyboards, mine has Continue reading
Going Viral ~ A Better Way
If you have big plans for the weekend, my advice would be to just scrap the whole idea. If whatever fun outing you had in mind involves some kind of public event, it has probably been cancelled already and if not, nobody else is likely to show up anyway. Every level of government from the upper echelons of Federal bureaucracy to the local animal control officer has made it clear that other people are far too dangerous for us to be around. We could inadvertently Continue reading
What Do You Expect?
One of my lingering memories from a mission trip to Kazakhstan years ago was walking down a street in one of the major cities and watching the fortune tellers plying their trade on the sidewalk. Predicting the future was apparently a thriving business in that area, and lots of people seemed happy to open their wallets in the hope of grabbing a glimpse of what might be coming their way. It was intriguing to watch, but it occurred to me that making a business out of predicting the future isn’t Continue reading
Right Time ~ Wrong Question
I have never officiated as a qualified referee in an athletic contest, but I’ve often felt like I needed a striped shirt and a whistle when standing between couples or groups in the midst of a contentious squabble. Most of the time, both sides looked to me expecting to hear some kind of sage counsel that would resolve the matter once and for all. In many of those instances, what that really meant was that each participant was thoroughly convinced that his or her position was the only reasonable one to hold. Further, if I had at least two active neurons at work in my cranium, I would immediately Continue reading
