My parents loved poetry. Better yet, they knew how to make that love contagious. My mother recited Keats and Browning (both Brownings) from memory, fitting them to our own lives, while my father… my father gave us Dylan Thomas and “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” Prose to some, but poetry to me. My father’s voice was wonderful to hear, not […]

A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. That is how Scripture describes our Lord Jesus Christ. Look into your enemy’s heart and you’ll see pain there. Perhaps, yes, it is pain he or she made for themselves. And perhaps it is pain someone else made for them, or fear instills in them. Before you respond to your enemy, remember their […]

“My spiritual pain is unbearable. I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people’s lives, then can it be that I… a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?” — Mikhail Kalashnikov Not long before his death in December 2013 (he was 94), Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 rifle, wrote a letter […]

When I was young, and someone was rude to me, I nearly always let them know it. Words are my domain, baby, so don’t tap my turntable. But now that I’m floating in the sea of middle-age, I find my response is usually to just be quiet and take it. Too much energy expended to reprove ‘em, and there’s usually […]

Paul Robeson, the legendary African-American singer, actor, and social activist, was in a little-known 1940 film, “The Proud Valley.” Documenting the lives of Welsh coal miners, the film did something unheard of and made a black actor the star of a mostly-white cast movie. More than that, it also offered a mix of piety and social activism which within just […]

What follows began as a short paragraph or two and turned into a reflection upon larger things. Confession at the outset: No, I have not read the “Shades of Grey” series and I never shall. I have read fairly extensively reviews of the books both pro and con, as well as some lengthy clips from the books (the first one […]

Salon magazine these days tends to major on Shrill. But that major caveat aside, their recent “The right’s Ayn Rand hypocrisy: Why their ‘religious’ posture is a total sham” carries real weight. Despite the Shrill. Earlier this week, CNN reported that American Atheists, an advocacy group for atheists and atheism, would have a booth at the 2014 Conservative Political Action […]

This is a story about a girl who loved a boy. The girl’s name was Michal. The boy’s name – we all know him – was David. David began as a shepherd boy, then a musician in Saul’s home there to soothe the King with his harp playing. Maybe the girl noticed him even then, we can’t be sure. But […]

Jeannie Greene first came to my attention one day when, as is always a musical education at Jesus People, I walked down the hall past various open rooms on a hot summer day. A gravelly yet magnificent voice sounding suspiciously like Janis Joplin came belting out of John and Tina’s room. But that was no Joplin song. Hey all you […]

Here’s some help for white folk not understanding why black folk in America might feel like the issue of race isn’t “fixed”… 1619 – 1865 – Legalized slavery says “black” people are property, beasts of burden. Women may be raped with impunity and at any age. Men may be raped, or beaten, or killed without any loss other than the […]