various Mark Twain was an American author and two of his most popular books are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. These books share the same characters and so the second of the two books, Huckleberry Finn, begins with this: You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the…
various The shepherds were sitting by the fire, sometimes talking and sometimes listening to the sounds of the night. The sheep bleating, insects and frogs making their mating cries, night owls swooping. They listened for the sound of sheep becoming uneasy because predators were creeping up to attack. They looked at the stars and the…
Matthew 2:1-11 The origin of giving gifts at Christmas has a number of different sources. In Matthew’s gospel we read that the magi came to see Jesus in Bethlehem, about a year after he was born, with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Although this is a logical precedent for giving gifts at Christmas, it…
Meditation One month ago, four days after arriving in Chiang Mai, Thailand to visit our daughter and her family, I began to feel achy and tired. I had a fever and began sleeping during the day. After five days of this, I went to the hospital to confirm that this was the flu and not…
Revelation 1:10-18 Dan, one of my Facebook friends, posted this status on his page: “I’m not anti-Christmas, but the point of Jesus was and is Easter.” This set off a string of comments. Doug wrote, “Christmas is the big, noisy introduction song. Easter is the coup de grace, the ultimate triumph.” Elizabeth wrote, “Think about…