Bible at Home

My grandmother was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the WCTU. Growing up, I never saw a bottle or a can of an alcoholic beverage of any kind in our house. But my father had a curious habit of calling us children up the stairs, “What’ll you have?’, for us to respond, “Pabst…

Standing in a 20 foot high circle in County Cork, Ireland, is a stainless steel sculpture by Alex Pentek, of nine huge eagle feathers arranged in a circle reminiscent of a bowl. It was erected in honor of the Oklahoma Choctaw Indian tribe. The information for this story appeared in the September- October issue of…

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God. . . (Deuteronomy 10:12) When Peter saw the miraculous catch of fish he fell at Jesus’ feet and said, “Go away from me, Lord, I am a sinful man! Then Jesus said to him, “Don’t be…

In a movie I watched recently, the housekeeper had promised the family to make a mushroom stew for their dinner. She was starting out to the woods to pick fresh mushrooms when a young woman staying with the family grabbed her basket and walked off with it, saying, I’d love to pick mushrooms! I’ve never…

Once I had the opportunity to see two great blue whales partly submerged, and then one of them breached, off the coast of California. My sister and brother-in-law had arranged a whale viewing boat trip for this very purpose, and just before the captain was about to turn back to the dock in disappointment, he…

The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this (wisdom). So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself. . . but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked.” (1 Kings 3:10-12) One of the most stunning events…

Walking down the isle of a small grocery store, I pulled my cart to the side as I heard another one close behind me. When I looked around I saw a mother with three children, two riding in or on her cart, one walking beside her. What struck me about their appearance was that all…

Two of my young nephews asked me if there was anything they could do to win their English teacher’s favor on a writing assignment. I answered, “If you can use a semicolon properly, she would probably be impressed, especially if she hasn’t taught it to you yet.” Both boys were eager to try, and so…

Maria, a Mexican woman who worked at the church I was attending, and I were chatting when she mentioned that she might be absent for a few days, as she was thinking about returning home with her sister to visit their mother. “My sister always likes to go home for some of my mother’s tortillas,”…

In Rudyard Kipling’s novel Captains Courageous, Harvey Cheyne Sr. sat alone in his office contemplating retirement as one of the richest rail-road barons in America, when he received a telegram. Five months earlier Cheyne’s only son, fifteen year old Harvey Jr, had been swept off the deck of a luxury ocean liner in a storm,…