Articles

  I had been looking forward to my lecture trip to Lomé, Togo, for months. Now, finally belted into my Air France seat and on my way to Africa for the very first time, I wasn’t feeling well at all.

One Sunday after church, as my wife and I pulled into our driveway, I felt an unusually strong impulsion to go immediately into our backyard. I walked to the edge of the yard, where a small stream flows into a larger, deeper pond.

It’s encouraging to know that age is not a barrier to progress. I learned that lesson early from a neighbor—a childhood friend’s father, Mr.

When I look at the news and hear or read about hatred, violence, revenge, and terror, I often ask myself what I can do to contribute to reconciliation. The Bible story about Jacob and Esau helps me with this.

My best prayer tends to happen when I have the quiet confidence and assurance of God’s immediate presence. At those moments, I know that God is All-in-all, divine Love, and that each one of us, as God’s ideas, is spiritual and complete.

Patience: I haven’t always felt that it has been one of my strong points. I’ve wrestled to find it, exercise it, and not berate myself when I’m in the throes of expressing its opposite.

Those words open the second chapter of St John’s Gospel in the Bible. In this chapter Christ Jesus begins his healing ministry.

I marvel at the Shunammite woman who looked death in the face and was not moved. The very day her son died in her arms (see II Kings 4:18–37 ), she walked about 16 miles to beseech Elisha, “the man of God” at Mount Carmel, to raise her son to life.

Everywhere, every day, people are being told—and we are hearing on the news—that something or other is hopeless. The word hopeless is applied to relationships, the search for employment, physical and mental conditions, attempts to bring peace to inflamed parts of the world, the search for individual and collective justice, and so much more.

Late one beautiful morning in Boston soon after Christmas, I paused for a moment to contemplate what I had been studying and turned to my window, scanning the horizon from my eighth-floor apartment. The view constantly changes.