In polite speech, we sometimes speak of people "being intimate" rather than using the blunt phrase "having sex." Intimacy can involve our bodies, to be sure. In fact, the original Hebrew for...
You and I are unique. I can't prove this, but I believe it. We hear phrases like "very unique" and "more unique," but we cannot in fact compare uniqueness. To be unique is...
When you're lying on your deathbed, you're not likely to wish you'd spent more time at the office and less time at...
Here we see a striking image of the kind of relationship God intends for marriage. The man and woman are "united into one." The Hebrew original, with its vividness, say that they are...
What an amazing act of delegation! God made a perfect, beautiful world, and then turned it over to the man. Here's the beginning of human management over God's creation, or to use more theological...
Maybe you haven't seen the wonderful interviews over at Spaghettipie yet. But her recent interview with Brenda Nixon takes things to a...
If God wanted his created beings, including humans, to survive, then he would have to provide some means of nourishment. So the fact that trees produced fruit makes practical sense. We might even...
Human beings come from the dust of the ground. We are of this earth, made from the gritty stuff of creation. Yet we are also a product of God's own breath, the breath...
Though we tend to think of God creating the world in six days and then resting on the seventh, the Hebrew of Genesis 2:2 makes it clear that God finished his work by resting.
Throughout the creation story in Genesis 1, God sees his creation and judges it to be good. Now, as his work is completed, he sees that it is "very good." The religious world...
Why are we here on earth? For centuries, philosophers and theologians have debated this question. No doubt the debate will continue for centuries to come. The first answer we find in Scripture...
For centuries, theologians have debated the precise nuances of our being in God's image. Does it suggest our intellect? Our will? Our spiritual capacity? Our life in community? We may never know...
Several years ago, I was sitting on an oceanfront cliff in Southern California, preparing a sermon. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye I saw something peculiar, a black...
In the Thanksgiving Eve services at Irvine Presbyterian Church, we had an open mic time when people in the congregation could publicly express their gratitude. We heard much of what you would...
From the beginning, God saw with moral vision. He saw the light, and saw its goodness. God discerns the true nature of everything. He sees clearly the difference between right and wrong. He cannot...
As the head of a small Episcopal grade school, I often give the chapel talk. To grab the attention of 40 squirming preschoolers—no easy task—I search for simple stories and parables. One morning,...
When I accepted a job in the camping industry, I never expected to find myself dangling from a cliff 50 feet above the Frio River. That's how I learned about vertical shepherding.One Wednesday...
We have more forms of communication available to us today than we've ever even imagined. The cost of connecting with one another over great distances is steadily going down as technology advances....
I have a long memory when it comes to work grievances. I can replay the slightest slight in vivid Technicolor, no matter how long ago it occurred.I still remember the day when, new...
If there is anything I loathe more than moving, it's the list of installations and service calls required to rewire my busy...
