On the afternoon of May 2, 1990, I heard holy things. I was visiting Larry Hildreth, a father and husband from our church in Pennsylvania. He was in his thirties, but he was near death from cancer. I was at his home to serve him Communion, because he was too weak to come to church.

Larry was a deeply thoughtful man, and as he spoke that day, slow and deliberately, I realized I was hearing extraordinary ...

In The Manger Is Empty, Walter Wangerin Jr. shares personal memories from past Christmases. In a chapter entitled "A Quiet Chamber," he recalls Christmas, 1944. That year, in the days leading up to Christmas Eve, Walter's father did the same thing he always did at Christmastime: he went into a room in the house, removed the outside door knob so the kids couldn't get in, and he decorated a Christmas ...

The problem with looking to Hollywood for the image of masculinity (even those true-to-life stories of courage) is that it feeds my desire for glory. Courage isn't only in the big accomplishments. It's in the small acts, too.

When I leave the theater and scratch the car door next to me getting into my car, my decisions about whether or not to leave a note admitting my mistake isn't glorious. Nobody ...

After years of street violence, drug use, and thievery, Fernando "Fernie" Aranda was sent to prison to a serve a 25-years-to-life sentence. But prison didn't change Fernie. His life behind bars matched the life he had lived on the streets. At one point he was even a suspect in the deaths of three fellow inmates. But Fernie's defiance ended when his 70-year-old mother came to visit him in prison. She ...

Is our gospel too small? From what Jesus says, I think that God likes small. Small and hidden, actually.

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It is like yeast. It is like a perfect pearl. It is like finding just one lost sheep. Or just one lost coin. It belongs to little children and others who were "small" in the estimation of Jesus' contemporaries.

God likes small beginnings. He likes to work ...

I went to my first black funeral when I was 16 years old. A friend of mine, Clarence, had died. The pastor was incredible. From the pulpit he talked about the Resurrection in beautiful terms. He had us thrilled. He came down from the pulpit, went to the family, and comforted them from the fourteenth chapter of John. "Let not your heart be troubled," he said, "'You believe in God, believe also in me,' ...

When the prayer made in faith is not answered, and the healing for which many have sought does not come, we are not to look for someone to accuse of failure in faith. Rather we are to remember that besides faith there is hope. Hope has to do with God's promises that are still future and hidden, just as faith has to do with God's promises that are here and now. To the person who has believed for today ...

In his book Exodus and Revolution, Michael Walzer shares three lessons we can all learn from the Exodus event of the Old Testament:

What the Exodus … taught: first, that wherever you live, it is probably Egypt. Second, that there is a better place, a world more attractive, a promised land. And third, that "the way to the land is through the wilderness."

What flower has been likened to "3-day-old road-kill," "rotting flesh," and "fish gone bad"? The answer is the corpse flower.

The corpse flower (titan arum), native to the equatorial forests of Sumatra, can grow up to 10 feet tall. Once opened, the spiked, bright red bloom even looks like rotten meat, a veritable welcome mat for the insects that pollinate it—flies and carrion beetles.

According ...

How to Deal is a movie about 17-year-old Halley Martin. Halley is jaded by the dysfunction of those closest to her. Her parents have recently divorced, her unmarried best friend is pregnant, and her sister is engaged to someone she constantly bickers with. As a result, Halley (Mandy Moore) ponders if it is possible to truly love someone.

Having just returned from the wedding of her father and his girlfriend, ...