How does one pray about cancer?
And what would happen if we didn't?
The mystery of marriage: Secrets of joined lives
No one from the outside can fully grasp the inner workings of any marriage. Even those inside sometimes find themselves lonely and strangers.
Barely enough: Manna in the wilderness of depression
We all live out our lives in the wilderness.
Among the strays: A pastor’s vocation
Before attending seminary, I worked for several summers as a truck driver. Later it dawned on me that truckers and clergy travel a similar metaphoric highway.
A Time for Confessing
Academic circles sometimes include a giant who publishes relatively little despite the pleading of students and colleagues....
Holy irony: Matthew 26:14–27:66
At one end of Matthew, Jesus goes free. At the other, cruel, ritualized slaughter befalls him.
Rejoice, believers: Colossians 3:1-4; Matthew 28:1-10
Rarely are cemeteries as peaceful as they seem. My boyhood friends visited them by night to consult with spirits—86-proof spirits, as I recall....
Ready or not (John 11:1-45)
A generation ago, Ernest Becker taught us that the fear of dying is the mainspring of all human activity, from our smallest efforts at survival to our loftiest cultural achievements....
After the healing (John 9:1-41)
In Richard Powers’s novel The Echo Maker, a young man suffers a brain injury in an auto accident and is afflicted with Capgras syndrome....
What child is this?: Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25
My extended family once had so many males named Frederick that the women in the family assigned each of us a number so the tribe could distinguish between us at family reunions. I became Fred IV. A casual observer might have thought that we considered ourselves royalty, or perhaps a line of renegade popes.