When we think about our military personnel in combat situations (wherever that might be), we know they’re in tough circumstances. War makes for that. More than a century and half ago, our country knew not just war—but an internal one, which at times, pitted neighbor against neighbor. There are even records of families that had members fightingContinue reading “Of Hope and Healing”
Category Archives: Read About It
Discipled Lives
Santiago is an elderly fisherman who hasn’t caught anything in almost three months in Hemingway’s classic, The Old Man and the Sea. Things are so bad that Manolin, his young apprentice, has been forbidden by his parents from fishing with him. They want him to go out with the more successful fisherman. It’s a dejected and desperate manContinue reading “Discipled Lives”
Who Do You Think You Are (Revelation)
Flannery O’Connor wrote Revelation as she lay in a hospital bed dying from complications of lupus. Most of the story takes place in a doctor’s crowded waiting room where the central character (Mrs. Turpin) is there with her husband for his doctor’s appointment. As she chats with another lady who is there with her college-aged daughter, theContinue reading “Who Do You Think You Are (Revelation)”
Recalled to Life
In A Tale of Two Cities, Jarvis Lorry works for Tellson’s Bank and is traveling by carriage from London to Dover. A messenger overtakes the carriage and delivers a note telling him he is to stay in Dover to meet with a client. The client is Lucie Manette, who has been the ward of the bank almostContinue reading “Recalled to Life”
When God Owns Your History
Although lupus took her life at the age of thirty-nine, Flannery O’Connor wrote two novels and thirty-two short stories that garnered several awards and honors. She was a Roman Catholic and made no secret about it or apologies for it (“I write the way I do because I am a Catholic”). Due to her illnessContinue reading “When God Owns Your History”
War of the Worlds
War of the Worlds was written by H. G. Wells in 1898. Though it hardly raises an eyebrow by today’s standards, it was pretty heady stuff then. England was at the height of its imperialism and creatures from another planet would be considered about the only qualified candidates to take down the Empire. Scientists were speculatingContinue reading “War of the Worlds”
The Selfish Giant
Oscar Wilde wrote a story for children (and children at heart), called The Selfish Giant. The story is about a giant who returns from a visit with an ogre to find his garden (yard) overrun with children from the neighborhood. Being the selfish giant that he is, he angrily banishes them from the garden and buildsContinue reading “The Selfish Giant”
The Resurrection and “Surprised by Hope”
Surprised by Hope (N. T. Wright), was published in 2008. I came across it about a year later and was so impacted by it that I immediately put together a series of messages on the resurrection and the profound truths that flow from it. It wasn’t that I didn’t have some understanding of these things prior toContinue reading “The Resurrection and “Surprised by Hope””
The Possible Dream
Miguel Cervantes is known to us for the literary masterpiece, Don Quixote. The Spanish writer was born in the mid-sixteenth century and from what we are able to reconstruct of his life, it was as interesting and colorful as the characters he wrote about. Cervantes was one of seven children. His father was a barber-surgeon atContinue reading “The Possible Dream”
The Joy of Sharing
As the Joad family travels to California as part of the great migration westward during the 1930’s in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, there’s a scene that takes place in a diner on Route 66. A man and his two sons shuffle in. Their time on the road has left them dirty and disheveled. The manContinue reading “The Joy of Sharing”
A Taste of Grace with Bruce Green 