In the fall of 1980, when I was twelve years old, I went with my dad into downtown New Orleans to his office on Magazine Street. Driving down Canal Street, the home of the beautiful and historic Saenger Theatre, I noticed something strange happening, and the Saenger Theatre was the epicenter of it all....

If you’re climbing a rock face, the thing that spares you from death in the event of a fall is your protection (which is some sort of anchor you put in the rock that will put an end to your fall).  Of course, the higher you climb beyond your last piece of protection, the farther you’ll fall...

My church is offering what might be an unusual parenting class. There is a psychology professor in town who goes to our church, and we’ve got her presenting a Sunday School class that emphasizes adolescent brain development. I suspect that this class is unusual for two reasons. First, most parents...

I walked into the Avalon Ball Room and looked around for a familiar face. Aaron and Kelly had their wedding reception here, but you wouldn’t know it. Tonight there was no band, wedding cake, or black-tied caterers serving plates of chicken. Thick armed men with tattoos and plastic cups of beer milled...

Around a year and a half ago, I was approached by David Sanford, founder of Sanford Communications1 out of Portland.  David was working on a project with Tyndale, a New Living Translation of the Bible that would feature art and book excerpts from throughout the history of Christianity, as well as a...

“If any man is thirsty, let Him come to me and drink…” Of course, it’s a bit of a rhetorical statement, offered as it was at a time whenon demand faucets and indoor plumbing hadn’t yet been invented, and offered in a place that regular saw temperatures above 100, (or 30...

There’s a scene in Victor Hugo’s Les Misable that never made it to the Broadway musical. Jan Valjean, the protagonist, is determined to correct the sins of his past. He had inadvertently ruined the fortune of one of his female employees and was now determined to find her daughter, Cosette. Cossette’s...

This past week we remembered the event from 20 years ago, when Chinese military opened fire in what has come to be called the Tiananmen Square massacre. There’s a marvelous piece here, by the NYT’s Nicolas Kristof. In addition, I have a personal story to tell… It’s December 23rd,...

“Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave...

“Let him who has ears, hear.” That’s how Jesus says it my translation of the Bible. But another author captures the essence of it well in his transliteration called “The Message”. After a parable, or a talk, Jesus would summarize by saying this: “Are you listening?...