On this day in 1896, the Olympic Games were reinstituted after a 1500 year hiatus. Held in Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics, King George I welcomed 60,000 spectators and […]

On this day in 1972, NASA launched Pioneer 10 from Cape Canaveral, its primary mission to gather information on the planet Jupiter. Carried on a three-stage Atlas-Centaur rocket, the nine-foot […]

On this day in 1790, Congress authorized the first official U.S. census. Five months later, under the authority of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, 17 federal marshals, aided by 200 […]

On this day in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba, an island off the northwestern coast of Italy. Exiled there in May 1814, the French emperor was permitted to retain […]

The bowl rested on a small table near the altar. Inside, coiled like little snakes, were white rubber bracelets imprinted with blue letters: WWJU The “U” threw me for a […]

The other day, in the wee hours of the morning, a spring storm blew in with the fury of a toddler whose favorite toy had been taken away. We woke up […]

My dad grew up in a Texas sharecropper’s shack during the Great Depression. He was barely a teenager when the “Grasshopper Wars” began. The winged insects darkened the sky like […]

I did not give up anything for Lent this year. My only resolution was to get through a devotional book that’s been collecting dust on my shelf for a while. […]

As we move through Lent, it’s a sure bet you’re going to be reminded to “deny yourself.” One of my sons told me that a Facebook friend feels she’s eating […]

In seminary, I was a youth pastor. Every summer during this time, I served as a volunteer at high school church camp. Those were halcyon days spent in small groups, […]