By Barry Howard It’s dark outside, and today seems even darker than usual. And it should. Today is the darkest day of the year. For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, the shortest day of the year,…
The light shines in the darkness
By Alan Bean This sermon was recently preached at a memorial service for those who have lost loved ones in the past calendar year. Before preaching, I sang an old country gospel song by Merle Travis, I am a Pilgrim…
Online hymn collection aims to comfort those grieving after events like Paris attacks
By Jeff Brumley Those still in shock from last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris and other places should try joining others in song, Deborah Carlton Loftis says. Ditto, she adds, for those grieving the sudden death of a church member,…
Looking for signs of the future
By Bill Prather This article is based on a Nov. 15 sermon from Mark 13:1-8, the Revised Common Lectionary text following the terrorist attacks in Paris. I have to confess that I’m not a big fan of disaster movies. I…
Answers that mean more death, only mean — more death
By Russ Dean So, what do we do when the world comes crashing down? When skyscrapers fall? When mad men appease their merciless god with fear and death, a bloody worship and the praise of a mother’s agonizing grief? Today…
Incidental contact
Packing up a house is an archaeological expedition through the layers of a life in one place, not only because of the collections of things that have to be sorted and assigned a destination, but also because of the stories…
Diana Garland: Force of nature, role model, friend
When Diana Garland arrived at Baylor University in 1997, a Texas Baptist asked me to describe her. Three words jumped to mind. Force. Of. Nature. Across her lifetime, particularly during her tenure at two splendid schools of social work, Diana…
Remembering John Claypool on the 10th anniversary of his death
I have been told that long before I stepped foot on the campus of Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology the issue of what students ought to call professors was addressed at a staff meeting. At a relatively small school…
Five grieving mothers & the problem of race
I’m finishing a fine novel called All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr in which one of the characters repeats this mantra: Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever. I feel…