Ancient Future

Ever been to worship at a church that was so folksy and “contemporary” that it felt more like a local service club meeting than a service of worship to God?
Sometimes churches want to put their message within reach of everyone who comes into their gatherings. This produces a possible conflict, however. Worship [...]

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New Words

What do “tablescape,” “cromulent,” “popesquatting,” “pineosaur,” and “truthiness” have in common?
They are all new words. The Oxford American Dictionary tracks the use of such words, and if they ever get off the ground, so to speak, they get added to the list of official words.
NPR recently interviewed Erin McKean of the Oxford American Dictionary, [...]

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C.S.Lewis

It seems that there is overwhelming interest in C.S. Lewis this year. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, played to record crowds and many bookstores carried C.S. Lewis displays in their Christmas offerings.
Those who know no more of him that what you see on the screen or by means of the action figures [...]

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Overheard

Lady 1: “Why are you buying that mug?”
Lady 2: “Because it’s on sale, and I don’t have one.”
Lady 1: “But you don’t drink coffee. Why do you need an insulated coffee mug?”
Lady 2: “I just ordered a coffee drink. I could use it.”
Lady 1: “You know you’ll never use it. It will just sit [...]

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Back Home

We were only gone three days and two nights. Actually, parts of three days and not even whole days. It doesn’t seem like much.
But a few days can sometimes be as refreshing as a week or more. At least if you don’t set your sights too high. In three days you [...]

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Wrong Direction

We went to a 9 PM Christmas Eve service in Monterey. The parking lot was full, and the sanctuary was packed.
The service concluded with ushers passing down the aisles with lighted candles. They stood at each row and lighted the candle of the person sitting on the end, who passed the light sitting [...]

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Monterey

Today we did one of our favorite things. We hiked around Point Lobos, a protected area of seashore near Carmel, California. The day was perfect. Temps were in the high 60s and the sky was a perfect blue. We even saw one father and his daughter with bathing suits being chased by the surf [...]

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Christmas

I got a post from a friend recently. Basically he wanted me to write advertisers who were using the politically corrrect “Holiday” instead of “Christmas” in their advertising.
I’m grateful for his sincerity and zeal for his convictions. I even believe that a good argument could be built for writing the letter. However, I [...]

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Friendship

A friend of mine came through town today. He called me to ask if we could meet for coffee, so we met at Starbucks. I felt honored that he took time out of his day for the visit; he’s a busy man.
But I think that is the nature of friendship. It spends [...]

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Sleep

I keep waking up about 2:30 AM. This is the second or third morning this week that I’ve done that.
At first I would try to will myself back to sleep. But that never works. My mind is already awake and doing gymnastics. This morning it was trying to work out how to get Internet links [...]

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