Whose hands are those?  Whose thinning hair
and small eyes, drab, but mischief-merry?
Who is that crone whose energy flags,
who can’t keep up with all I used to do?
I’d fret, and yet
I’m a grandma soft, my contours
plump enough to nestle up to
as I snuggle little ones into a book,...

Elijah in the wilderness
Fleeing from an evil queen
In his despair he lay down
Under a broom tree
Wanting to give up and die

Twice the Lord came
Twice he left a cake
Baked on a rock
A cake and a jar of water
And Elijah ate and was filled
More than filled, he was fortified
What was this magic cake
That said...

That tiny little bundle of a babe turns forty years old this week.  As most of you know she also recently published a book: “All the Time: Daily Devotions Finding Faith in the Everyday Moments.”  In honor of her momentous day, I present this imagined dialogue with my...

“When Lazarus was raised, Jesus wept, and I’m betting Lazarus wept too.”                              Charles Stanley

Healing is happening all the time, yet we barely bat an eye.  We’re...

God’s people of the first covenant were given ten rules by their Lord.  They then multiplied them into thousands—hedge around hedge of regulations to govern and restrain them from breaking the first ten.  We as Christians could be guilty of doing that too, with our...

My son-in-law asked me for a hug.  I’d just been hugged by his oldest son Campbell, and Ben wanted some of that action.  So, masked and standing in my family room, we hugged while Campbell looked on.  It was the first such hug in a year, I think.  “For everything...

“With my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.”  Psalm 89:1

I operate as if loving someone involves only my mouth…that if I can say the right thing, they will know that they are loved.  But the Biblical writer James talks about the tongue as...

Years ago, a neighbor came to my door fighting mad.  My kids were playing out back, and they were screaming and hollering and having a great time.  That wasn’t the source of Pete’s complaint.  He was angry that our dachshund Brandy was jumping around and barking at all...

Flooded with angled sunlight
and the nearest highway’s white noise,

the stones line the riverbed,
tumbled down by torrents that have traveled on

and left them high and dry.  Distant houses dot
the mountain base, infiltrating the wilderness

with green lawns and desert planting--
faux...

Every person’s life has dark corners and slashes of light… a realization that has made me reticent to talk about “sin” in any context other than my own.  Every self-destructive behavior that alienates us from another, every carping criticism leveled at a group or...