Articles

IT HAD gotten to the point where I didn't even want to go to church. Faced with the challenge of a huge and nearly empty church building, our membership had grown increasingly contentious.

THE KINDS of calls I respond to as a volunteer chaplain with the county sheriff's department don't typically involve crimes of such severity. In fact, I'm mainly there for the officers—to provide support and a listening ear.

THIS MIGHT sound like a radical concept, but here it is: You and God are one. Not just related, not just connected.

AVID CAMPERS and those (like me) with wood-burning furnaces know that building a proper fire doesn't happen instantaneously. But with patience and persistence, a lone ember, or the flame of a single match, can be coaxed into a cheerful, crackling blaze.

WORDS ARE POWERFUL. They shape thinking and change lives.

SHE'S A BIT OF A MYSTERY, THIS WOMAN. I can't help wondering about her.

THE MESSAGE ON THE ROADSIDE MARQUEE GOT MY ATTENTION: "Everyone who wants to be first must first be last, and the servant of all. " Since my commute to work took me past this church every day, I'd often made a point of noting the topic for the upcoming Sunday service.

From the window of his second-story home office in Upland, California, Rob Gilbert can catch a clear view of Mt. Baldy's 10,000-foot-high peak.

They seem insignificant, almost wispy, moments. Spun together in our memories, though, they're like silk filaments becoming a skein, then a scarf, then a gift.

One day when I was 11, I had just gotten out of school and had walked across the road to see my friend while I waited for my mum. On my way back, a jeep was coming, but I didn't see it.