After firing too many personal questions at me, the hospital’s admitting rep barked, “Do you have an Advanced Medical Directive?” When I nodded, she snapped, “We’re gonna need that.” Having lived my life in God’s loving embrace, I believe I will, when the time comes, walk through the doorway to
Gerald Schroeder, the author of God According to God (HarperOne, 2009) holds a Ph.D. in physics and earth sciences from MIT. He is also an Orthodox Jewish theologian (and lives and teaches in Jerusalem). Furthermore, Schroeder clearly understands time, space, and matter as finite concepts floating in the sea of
Well into her 90s, Mary Chinn, my mother, continued to walk a mile a day, clean her kitchen floor on her hands and knees, and take care of all housework in the Kansas home she and Dad built a half century ago. A few weeks ago Mom, now 94, fell
Imagine that you, a cop or teacher, could tour an active volcano. You would not experience its boiling and beautiful wonder as a geologist, but rather from your untrained perspective. And, in fact, your lack of education and expertise may enrich the whole experience. That is the basic premise of
The new movie, The Shack, based on the hit novel of the same name, tells the gripping story of great pain and shocking loss. But right there is where The Shack steps beyond another retelling of the human suffering story. It does so by revealing loss as a doorway to
A friend of mine swears that he once got so lost on back roads that his GPS actually announced, “You have now arrived beyond all knowledge.” I often think of that as I see the rapid spread of serious crises and the parallel collapse of human ability to even understand
I recently had to face my offensive harshness with telemarketers. For the first time I saw one as a fellow human who was struggling, stressed, and locked into a job he hated. And my glorious Edness had just made his load heavier. That epiphany broke something in me that needed
To my great surprise, I learned that trees feel pain (even emitting ultrasonic “screams”), have some capacity for sight, require daily and seasonal periods of rest, possess memory, communicate with other trees, defend themselves when attacked, care for their young, build friendships with other trees, pass wisdom down to the next generation, fight to survive, and extend respect to the other members of their community.
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, a freelance journalist wrote that she would not (as was her custom) rent out parts of her Washington home to Inauguration participants this year. She explained that she just couldn’t bring the hate of Trump supporters into her neighborhood. Of course, had Secretary Clinton
Minutes before I spoke to a Christian leadership retreat, another speaker took a position disputing what I would soon be saying. Wanting to avoid conflict or embarrassment, I discreetly asked my friend Mike Bishop to step outside. When I sought his counsel, he nodded his understanding and said, “Just remember, and,
