Recently my wife and I flew to North Carolina to attend the memorial service of our dear friend and former missionary colleague Eugene Ruble. Gene and Peggy served in Indonesia for many of the years we also were there as…
What your faith community needs to know for Suicide Awareness Month
This article discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. If you are in crisis, call or text the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You know someone, even if you don’t know it. You work with someone. Go to school with someone….
Two ideas for living with death
The sociologist Peter Berger once said the power of religion rests, ultimately, upon the credibility of the banners it puts in our hands as we walk toward death. A recent brush with death awakened me to the surprising fact that,…
What will you do with your Daniel scar?
Today, I did something I’ve never done before at a funeral. Something so ill-advised that pastoral care professors reading this likely will flinch on hearing it. Something that’s the wrong thing except when it is suddenly very necessary. I told…
A geezer Valentine for Lent
It’s Valentine’s Day, and Ash Wednesday. I’m sitting in the waiting room of my urologist, watching an endless procession of old men come and go. I’m one of them: the brotherhood of enlarged prostates and the thousand other natural shocks…
What shall we bring the grieving, poor as we are?
My heart is heavy today for those who grieve at Christmas. Not just those who are grieving the loss of loved ones and planning funerals instead of parties — I’ve officiated five such services in the past two weeks, and…
God (suffers) with us
As we laid Phyllis, my paternal grandmother, to rest Dec. 11, 2019, I looked around and saw my family trying to piece themselves together. It was an intense funeral, the kind that comes after an unexpected loss; the kind where…
If the Sinner’s Prayer is the only way to salvation, why isn’t it in the Bible?
One night recently, I was speaking by phone with the adult son of a man whose funeral I would officiate a few days later. While getting to know the family and the deceased in preparation for these “pick up” funerals…
A generational torch passes at Bubba-Doo’s
Today I sat on the other side of the Bubba-Doo’s restaurant from where I normally do. I suppose more of us are creatures of habit than we care to admit. There’s nothing wrong with the portion that I sat in…