Bible at Home

We have all heard of a “new normal” in the world since the appearance of the covid pandemic. For each one there is a different understanding of what that “normal” is like, and what it means. Some ideas overlap: “I’ll never feel the same about being in a crowded place.”, or “Business will never be…

In reading a biography of ST. Augustine I found that it contains vocabulary words in English which were entirely new to me, beside the occasional Latin or French or German word. In spite of that I persevere, feeling certain that the subject himself will be worth the reading. In fact I have learned much so…

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August of 2005, many people were displaced. Busloads arrived n Houston, Texas and were temporarily housed in the Brown Convention Center. I watched an interview on TV with a young man at the center who had recently arrived after being twenty four hours without food or sleep. The…

“Now Zelophehad, son of Hepher. . . had no sons but only daughters, whose names were Mahlah, Noah, Hogliah, Milkah, and Tirsah.  They went to Eleaser the priest, Joshua son of Nun,  and the leaders, and said, ‘ The Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our relatives.’  So Joshua gave them an…

The calendar has turned, and so has the weather. Beautiful cooler days have replaced our summer of gasping at the temperatures and hibernating inside. The feeling of fall has brought wonderful home made displays of pumpkins and exotic gourds, not to mention Halloween paraphernalia onto front yards and doors. It happened almost overnight, and the…

My roommate in college was a psychology major. She once told me that “maturity is really just knowing when to trust your intuitions.” I thought that it sounded good, but I couldn’t match that idea to my life. Ever since then her definition has come back to me and I begin to think I understand…

Once when my nephew Jim was showing me his back yard vegetable garden I asked him, “When you’re planting in the spring, are you thinking about what you’re going to plant next year?” He answered simply, “Always!” I smiled because my father, his grandfather, did the same. He would come in from planting radishes and…

St. Augustine once wrote in a sermon, “Behold, sometimes we are made glad by a certain inner sweetness. Yes, our mind has been able to catch a glimpse , for a fleeting instant, of something above change. . . .Now I have a sense throughout my being of something beyond time.” (Sermon 158) When we…

When I was in junior high school my class took a field trip to a newspaper publisher’s building where we watched the production of a newspaper. At one stop we saw a tall machine that we were told was one of the most valuable in the building . It had only one function, and only…

President Harry Truman famously kept a sign on his desk that read “The Buck Stops Here.” When I listen to the news or read the newspaper I feel as if our whole world is wondering where the “buck” stops, who or what is to blame for every natural or man—made disaster or even difficulty. Consensus…