I spent my college years at the University of Kansas. The school’s natural history museum is located just behind my old dormitory. One of the museum’s most prominent displays is Comanche, the taxidermied horse of...

When our devotional team considered fasting from food we tossed around a number of non-food ideas. One was refraining from toxic attitudes. Another was taking a break from social and other media. These exercises seem...

As you begin this week, read the fourth commandment below in two different Old Testament books. Observe the reasons given for this commandment in each. Remember the Sabbath day to set it apart as holy....

Traditionally, most churches followed a Sunday ritual of collecting offerings  accompanied by music, solemnly passing a basket through rows of congregants. A church I once attended departed from that custom by placing baskets at the...

I have been meditating on the five situations (yes, only five), described in the gospels where Jesus is observed explicitly and verbally giving thanks. Color me shocked:  that so few occurrences exist. Two of those...

Our devotional topic this week has been prayer that is dialogue with God —  “in the Way of Jesus with the Heart of Jesus”. As our writing team met to consider various aspects of practicing...

The group of those who believed were of one heart and mind, and no one said that any of his possessions was his own, but everything was held in common. With great power the apostles...

Have you encountered a scene like the one above? Though this activity is legal, positioning yourself in the midst of a multitude of speeding, turning vehicles to acquire a few dollars seems unwise. In Luke...

  This photo shows a collection of letters written to me by my Mom. Although she had an ample supply of paper, her beautiful cursive almost always filled an entire page, front and back, covering...

One Easter Sunday a friend invited me to her Russian Orthodox Church service (Russian language only, no seats). That space was dense with exquisite chanting, intoxicating incense, ornate priestly vestments and precious ancient icons —...

Below is a 1916 photo — likely taken by my grandfather — of my grandmother, my two uncles and my mother in front of their sod house in central Nebraska. This type of house was...

From 1970 through 1975 I was involved in a Christian ministry to the “unhoused and unhinged” (the latter occasionally included me). One portion of that ministry was a Saturday evening coffeehouse featuring free sandwiches, hot...