First Person

When I first had sex, it wasn't just teenage hormones. I wanted to know and be known.

How does the blazing sun produce so much refreshing fruit?

“Even Lucifer might well have a change of heart,” said the fifth grader. “Isn’t that right, Father?”

We asked readers to write on the theme "feast." Here are the most compelling entries.

We invest each seed and young plant with the exuberant yet completely rational hope of compounded returns.

We call God "Father" and "Mother" because children don't say "Parent, Parent." But what will my children call me?

Matt grew up in the Episcopal Church. One Sunday he appeared at the altar—with his arms crossed over his chest.

Why and how I bless my children

As a child, I followed the order of worship in the bulletin, mentally checking off each item. My eyes were on the prize.

By summer, the plants are working overtime. It's a wonder we don't have as many words for green as the Inuit have for snow.

I lit the candles, opened the doors, picked up a handful of bulletins, and stood at the entrance. I smiled at a group of 15 students. One waved and then they turned and walked to the grocery store.

You were thrilled to enter the crawl space, but also frightened. There was a chance of snakes.

On the seventh floor of Hogwarts, Harry Potter and his friends discover a magical room. My church contains such a room.

My ecclesiastical criminality has been going on for 45 years. It all started at a Trappist abbey in Virginia.

Spent all day and deep into the evening Saturday at a wedding, studying the ways and means and manners by which people gently touch each other, and so communicate this and that and the other thing.

In Texas, even pastors are carrying.

For career day at my daughter's school, I brought pictures of some of the things pastors do. The students were mostly interested in the funerals.

I used to read Ephesians 4 and get that vague, warm glow we Mennonites feel when we see the word peace. Now the passage stops me cold.

Every valley shall be exalted—but when?