If it takes a village to raise a child, the same is true when life draws to a close and death ushers a loved one into the greater presence of God. Loss, particularly death, is difficult to face apart from the…
Spirituality: 4:30 a.m. and mindfulness
[This is the sixth (spirituality) of a nine-part series on empowering a faith community to impact the world. Already hospitality, evangelism, missions, ethics and Bible have been explored.] During my sabbatical study at Oxford University many years ago, I decided to take a…
Taking it all in – the pain and the joy
Joseph Andrew Haynie’s eyes were blue. Reading his Army discharge papers fifty-eight years after his death, I learned this simple fact. Joe Haynie married Katie Louise Clyde in the tumultuous year of 1941 – and left not long afterwards for…
Is church a waste a time?
If I could have more money or more time, I’d take more time. No doubt. There’s so much I want to do in this world, too much to see, to experience, to know. Nothing puts me in a foul mood…
In praise of the undazed life
“Why stand ye gazing . . . ?” (Acts 1:11) My Dad wasn’t the least bit athletic; nor were others in his family. So we’re not sure where my sporting interest and coordination came from. I played every kind of…
A visit to Treblinka
We arrived in the city of Treblinka with some trepidation. Our drive had taken longer than expected so we were anxious to get off the bus and see the memorial. We drove passed the city limit sign. We drove through…
Who will go to Destination Unknown?
“Destination Unknown.” That was the stated course of the troop ship on which Julia Graham and her first husband, Henry, embarked in May 1945, with their 7-month-old son, as Baptist missionaries to the Middle East. Julia and Henry and the…
‘I see ya brought a helper’
My dad drove a gas truck for the local farmers cooperative when I was a kid. He delivered bulk fuel to farms for tractors and furnace oil to village dwellers for heat. In the summer or on a school break,…
It’s slow, but ‘ Tomorrowland’ offers antidote to doom and gloom
There was a time when the world believed the future would be better. That view held to the promise of better days within reach. But when that future arrived we found not a promise but what many saw as a…