Yuko Maruyama, a Japanese organist working in Minneapolis, was once a devout Buddhist. Now, thanks to the music of J. S. Bach, she is a Christian. "Bach introduced me to God, Jesus, and Christianity," she told Metro Lutheran, a Twin Cities monthly. "When I play a fugue, I can feel Bach talking to God." Masashi Masuda, a Jesuit priest, came to faith in almost the same way: "Listening to Bach's Goldberg ...

To embrace the Ascension is to heave a sigh of relief, to give up the struggle to be God (and with it the inevitable despair at our constant failure), and to enjoy our status as creatures: image-bearing creatures, but creatures nonetheless.

—N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham (Church of England) and writer (1948—)

Ascension Day is the perfect church holiday because the world can't steal it. The culture around us has quite ruined Christmas and Easter. Of course, the world owned Christmas as its festival for the restoration of the sun before the early Christians used it to disguise their celebration of Christ's birth. … But the world has now stolen it for its consumeristic purposes and has seized Easter ...

In the movie Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS auditor who suddenly finds himself the subject of narration only he can hear. Crick discovers that he is the main character in Karen Eiffel's (played by Emma Thompson) latest novel. Crick's dull existence is affected when he realizes the narrator is planning his death. Enlisting the help of a literature professor (played by ...

Janet glared disapprovingly at her husband, Al. She couldn't believe how he had just stuck his foot in his mouth, given himself away, embarrassed the both of them—and didn't even know it!

It was Easter Sunday morning, and the couple was standing at the back of the church, shaking hands with the preacher.

"You're in a rut, Reverend," said Al. "You preach about the Resurrection every time I come ...

Newsweek provided this description of the dethroned Saddam Hussein:

In a part of the world where pride and dignity mean everything, the images were clearly intended to shame. A nameless doctor or medical technician, wearing rubber gloves, was seen closely examining the man's hair, perhaps looking for vermin. Prodded with a tongue depressor, the man opened his mouth; the doctor peered at the pink flesh ...

At my house, the TV is off. It will be until Easter. The first time this happened, it was unintentional.

Some years ago, a few weeks before Easter, a burglar took some odd pieces of jewelry, a shirt my cousin gave me for Christmas, and my VCR. Worse, he took the adapter for the cable box. The antenna reception on the TV was bad, so I turned it off until I could get a new adapter. I was busy with seminary ...

The other two days have earned names on the church calendar: Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Yet in a real sense we live on Saturday, the day with no name. What the disciples experienced in small scale—three days in grief over one man who had died on a cross—we now live through on cosmic scale. Human history grinds on, between the time of promise and fulfillment. Can we trust that God can make something ...

It is curious that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear the story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all.

Tom Allen, a former Army Ranger, tells this story:

I finally saw Saving Private Ryan about two weeks ago. I was extremely proud until the last minute of the movie.

As the movie began, I was proud watching the Rangers take Omaha Beach. Then the story begins when they receive a mission to go deep into enemy territory to save Private Ryan. They hit skirmish after skirmish, and some of them are killed ...