A few days ago – at the ungodly hour of 4:15 am – I woke up. It wasn’t to go to the bathroom, although at my age, you couldn’t be faulted for thinking that. No, it was to slip on some cammies and grab a quick cup of coffee before...

I’ve lost my gym membership card again. This is, like, the  87th time. I’ve looked for it everywhere – under my car seats, on my office desk, in the pockets of my workout pants. I’ll have to go to the front desk of the gym again and sheepishly ask if...

The first time I saw it, I fell in love with the Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival at University Christian Church in Ft. Worth, TX. It’s a Renaissance-style worship service with Epiphany themes, full of colorful sprites and troubadours and dancing maidens. My middle sister plays percussion in the orchestra, which...

I’ve been fascinated with science since I was a kid. I remember playing with a chemistry kit I received as a birthday gift and, to this day, I’m shocked I didn’t blow up my bedroom. I also wore out my Golden Nature Guidebooks.  Remember those? They were pocket-sized volumes that...

I love the holidays and used to get a little sad when they ended. Now I look to them finishing up with joy. Oh, I still love Christmas, but I love it a little too much. During December, I eat a lot. Okay, I eat enough to fuel an Olympic...

One recent morning, my wife and I were put on “PaPa and Mimi” duty while my daughter ran some errands. Our granddaughter, Charlie, would not go down for her morning nap, so I got her out of her crib and, like any responsible grandfather, handed her to Mimi.   The first...

I was reading Genesis 2 last week and I was struck by a single word. In verse 7, God forms man out of the ground and breathes into his nostrils. At that point, Adam became a living “soul.”  The word “soul” conjures up pictures of a celestial spirit trapped in the...

I’ll never forget the look on the woman’s face. It was a cross between Oscar the Grouch and a lemon that had been forgotten in the back of the fruit bin. “I didn’t like your sermon today!” she snapped. “Why?” I asked. “Because you preached on repentance, and this is...

In his book, The Song of the Bird, Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello tells a parable about a fish.  “Excuse me,” said an ocean fish. “You are older than I, so can you tell me where to find this thing they call the ocean?” “The ocean,” said the older fish,...

Believe it or not, I read a civil conversation between two people who disagreed the other day. A young man defending the Christian faith on his Twitter page asked, “Atheists, what would convince you that God exists?” Another man replied, “Do you ask to learn or debate?” The tweeter wrote,...