The ReAwaken America Tour made its latest stop at Donald Trump’s National Doral Miami. The three-day revival ended last Saturday. Among the hodgepodge of conspiracy theorists and wannabe powerful preachers, Gen. Michael Flynn sounded the most ominous. He said, “The…
Our weekly gun massacres mark a devastating cultural failure
Our weekly gun massacres in the United States are shocking in the extreme. They set us apart from other nations in the worst possible sense. I have not yet been in or near one of these massacres. The closest I…
A primer on leading public prayer
Sunday, April 30, was my last Sunday as minister of music at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas. That day my colleague, George Mason, senior pastor emeritus, offered Prayers of the People, a regular part of our worship liturgy led by…
Taking a chance at Bubba-Doo’s
The excitement about the big raffle being held this year shouldn’t have taken me by surprise. Yet it did. There was some buzz about these tickets online. Yes, we live in a small rural community. But many of our locals…
Donald Trump is not the kind of star he thinks he is
Donald Trump did not appear at his trial in New York City, where he was accused of raping and defaming author E. Jean Carroll. He did testify under oath, however, in a deposition with Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, at Mar-a-Lago…
Why did it take 20 years to learn my most far-reaching life lesson?
How does a moment morph from repeatably mundane to irreversibly transformative? That question has echoed through my mind countless times across more than 46 years — since an unrecorded lecture in an unremarkable classroom on an otherwise unmemorable autumn morning…
Finding ways to speak up when it’s a Whisper Wednesday: Lessons from the meek
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” is a Beatitude that has held a special place in my heart. I always have been a soft-spoken, shy girl. I sit at the front of the classroom to get…
CNN’s disastrous platforming of Donald Trump
“CNN’s New Hampshire town hall with Donald Trump last night may have done more to boost his chances of winning the GOP presidential nomination than anything that’s happened since the 2020 election.” That was Politico Playbook’s substantive conclusion this morning. It’s…
Her church
I haven’t been able to get the book Her Country by Marissa Moss out of my brain since reading the “State of Women in Baptist Life,” released in 2022. The book explores the decline of women on country radio through…
The Bible is a tool, not a weapon
A few weeks ago in one of our Wednesday evening worship gatherings, I told the story of an episode I watched of the TV show “Criminal Minds.” It opened with a car pulled off onto the shoulder of a road…
A meditation on death
My sister-in-law Faye died this weekend after a long and debilitating chronic illness. Not surprisingly, her husband of 60-plus years wondered why God allowed her to suffer. I don’t think God did. I don’t think God causes, allows or wills…
Live by the mouth, die by the mouth
There’s no disputing Donald Trump is the all-time champion mouth. He used his mouth to get elected president of the United States. Now, his mouth has been the primary culprit in a New York jury finding him liable for battery…