God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. (Genesis 1:31) Do you remember when you first discovered that the world, the earth is a beautiful place? Perhaps you were on a family vacation and you were gripped by exploding autumn colors in the...

Preachers love stories – hearing them; telling them; sharing them; and even – if necessary and it is good for the kingdom’s sake - making them up! From this preacher, you will not likely hear me tell a golf story. I have never played the game and outside of knowing...

Years ago when I was just a fledgling young adult I stumbled upon a stack of old candy bar wrappers that my grandmother had carefully saved through the years. A dozen or so “Mr. Goodbar” wrappers had been devotedly pressed like wildflowers on exhibit and preserved as...

I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible, to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth, I dream’d that was the new city of Friends. I keep a copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass on the end table by my reading chair. I read snatches of his lines in the early...

It took four weeks of intermittent, hard labor but I have taken care of a stump in our front yard…mostly. It all started with the ice storm – ICE2K14, or icepocalypse, or whatever you want to call that event one month ago. We had several trees come down during the...

I love the rich breadth of Christianity, which means I am open to “new” ways of experiencing community with fellow believers. Observing Ash Wednesday (this year it is on March 5) is an old practice for believers around the world but fairly new to most Baptists. For...