Editorials

He was a composer who had gone bankrupt, was a deeply depressed man, and was derided as a “German nincompoop. ” One day, though, a friend visited him and asked if he would write music to accompany Bible verses that had been compiled into a libretto.

I was surely the least well-off person in the room at the Thanksgiving Day service. Churchgoers from the well-to-do neighborhood I was visiting gave thanks for things my 20-something self just didn’t have: homes of their own, marriages, careers.

What a different story the Gospels would tell if people had been reluctant to ask Jesus for his help. We wouldn’t know about the woman who suffered 12 long years with hemorrhaging if she hadn’t struggled through a crowd to reach Jesus and find healing.

In the Preface of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,  the book that sets forth the divine Science of Mind-healing that Jesus practiced, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Future ages must declare what the pioneer has accomplished” ( p. vii ).

The 2022 Open Doors “World Watch List” of the 50 countries where Christians are persecuted the most makes for sober reading. And while 68 percent of these countries are Muslim-majority nations, a recent Pew report showed that globally Muslims suffer harassment in almost as many countries as Christians, often from followers of other faiths.

It’s been said that the sun was shining one day when all of a sudden there was a commotion on earth. A large number of animals were yelling about how they had found darkness in a cave.

What would you have thought if you had come all the way from Libya to Jerusalem for a Jewish harvest celebration and heard a new message in your own language from people who didn’t know that language? And you weren’t alone. The person from what’s now Turkey heard the message in his own language.

For many, there’s a special feeling about being in church on Easter. But what is it about the holiday that evokes sacredness? It must be more than just tradition and ceremony.

When I interviewed a gracious, joyful man named Harold Bradley, Jr. , a decade ago, he had a lifetime of stories to share.

WRITING IN a journal can be a good way to pause and think clearly. Maybe you are starting a personal journal at the beginning of this new year.