If you come over to my house and check out my closet, you’ll find two or three brand new shirts I haven’t worn yet. I got them for Christmas. I’m not even sure Ivetaken the tags of them yet. New shirts, sweaters, a new pocket knife. I got a lot of new stuff this year….
In 1983, if you went to the movie theatre to watch a George Lucas film, just before the movie began, an electronically generated low to high frequency sound would come booming into the theatre, as a THX sound system prepared you for the incredible sound system you were about to hear. And as the long,…
I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between skilled fiction writers and the actors who portray the characters in their stories. Movie and television writers can take a popular novel and re-write it into a script, with lines of dialogue for fictional characters and descriptions of pretend-scenes. And then actors can transform that script into…
My wife came to me the other day, with one of her necklaces, asking for help. Sometimes, the hooks are just too small for her to navigate, especially when she’s working behind her neck. I’m the helper in that case, managing the necklace fastener. But, occasionally those tiny chains that jewelry designers seem to love,…
Once, not so long ago for God I suppose, He did a very strange thing. On an ordinary day, the Lord, the Son of God, prepared to take His leave of heaven. I cannot say what the weather was like the day He left, but it must have been as still and noiseless as a…
It is not inconsequential that two of the most important characters in the Advent story are women. While on some levels it may be true that women are the weaker sex, it is also absolutely true that if men were responsible for birthing babies, there’d be a lot fewer people in the world. The courage…
When I think about Advent, I am always struck by the ‘humanity’ of it all. The very idea that God would send his son to take on a cloak of humanity in order that lost mankind might be redeemed and restored in their relationship with our God? That seems like such an ‘unhuman’ thing for…
When I was growing up, in our family we didn’t really say much about Advent as a season. We talked about Christmas, of course. But having an Advent calendar, or lighting an Advent Candle at our church on Sundays wasn’t something I was familiar with until I was grown. But I have come to appreciate…
I love Thanksgiving. I always have. I remember growing up that Thanksgiving day was different from any other day of the year. On most Thanksgivings, the air in our neighborhood hung heavy with the smell of roasting turkey coming from almost every house. But roasting turkey wasn’t the only smell. In our neighborhood, Thanksgiving Day…
I love Thanksgiving. My memories of Thanksgiving dinners at home are treasured ones, but one particular celebration when I was a little boy stands out from all the rest. Moments after the, “Amen,” of my dad’s Thanksgiving prayer, there was a knock at our front door. “Must be somebody wantin’ to play,” said my brother…