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We walk in Gift today
When she was a child, writer Annie Dillard would occasionally hide one of her precious pennies for someone else to find. She would cradle it in the roots of a tree or in a crack in the sidewalk, and with a piece of chalk draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions.… Continue reading
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A Brand-New You
For the Christian, being baptized is not like beginning a new year or a new calendar. It’s not about turning over a new leaf in life. It’s about starting a new life entirely, a life in which everything old has passed away and everything becomes an entirely new creation (2 Cor. 5:17)! Here’s a baptismal… Continue reading
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Are you tomorrow?
When I saw the question, I forgot everything else. It was only three words, part of a series of text messages, and may have made sense as part of the whole conversation. But in that first moment, it made no sense at all; it drew me to a place where sense was irrelevant, a place… Continue reading
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As Christmas nears
“Joy to the world!” we’re preparing to sing in little more than two weeks, “and heav’n and nature sing” with us, or we with them. We echo joy in heeding the invitation, “Sing choirs of angels, sing in exultation, sing, all ye citizens of Bethlehem” – and of Buffalo and its environs, too. I already… Continue reading
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What is truth?
In 1883, Thomas Edison noticed a black dot that would sometimes appear inexplicably near the filament on the inside surface of one of the light bulbs he was examining. It wasn’t a scratch or a spot of soot or dust, and the problem puzzled Edison so much it kept him awake at night. He wanted… Continue reading
Arthur Brooks, being too busy, Carl Jung, discovery of the electron, electron, Israel, Jacob at the Jabbok, Jesus’ interrogation, Jesus’ trial, Joseph John Thomson, life’s challenging questions, life’s insoluble problems, living with questions, mysteries of creation, Pilate, questions without answers, the bottom line, Thomas Edison, wrestling with God -
The test of our faith
For a moment last week, I could have imagined myself in Rick’s Café Américain, in Casablanca in the early 1940s. If you’ve seen the movie, you may recall a scene in which some German soldiers in the café start singing “Die Wacht am Rhein,” a German patriotic anthem. Other patrons, sympathetic to the French Resistance,… Continue reading
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Swimming in life
It may be the question behind every other meaningful question we ask. One nameless man – a John Doe who could have been any one of us – put it this way when he ran up to Jesus and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17). How do I… Continue reading
abundant life, Anthony de Mello, attitude of gratitude, banquet of heaven, before it’s too late, blessings and burdens, blessings of life, eternal life, faith, give thanks in all circumstances, God, Good Teacher, Gospel of Thomas, hard-knock life, heaven, Jesus, kingdom of God, now or never, Orphan Annie, perfect life, the future, the gospel, the Great Banquet, the ocean, two ocean fish
The Sauntering Pilgrim 