A New Creation, A New Garden

“In the beginning was the Word,” is the sublime opening sentence of John’s Gospel. Like the beautiful, yet anxious, faint opening notes of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony, they can barely hold themselves back from the glorious explosion of sound that looms just ahead! “The Word was with God” and “God was the Word” and the “Word … Read more

A Bigger Jesus: Introducing the Gospel of John

Last month (April 27, 2019) my wife Mary and I – along with our grandchildren Jacob and Bella – witnessed the most significant event to occur in Somerset Massachusetts in the last hundred years: the great Brayton Point Cooling Towers implosion. At last, the two uber-ugly cooling towers that had so blighted our skyline came … Read more

Shooting Arrows: Spiritual Parenting in a Soulish Age

I recently happened upon an article written by Bria Sledge, a project assistant at the North Carolina State University Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences. The article asks why the role of a parent is so important to a child’s development. She writes: “Parents are not only caretakers, but they are instrumental in the development of … Read more

Does Less = More?

We all know the feeling. We’re driving down the road and a red ‘dummy’ light illuminates the dashboard. It looks like a child’s drawing of an engine. Fun! So, you call your mechanic; ‘Bring it in,’ he says. Hours later the diagnosis comes: the phenobus has popped out of the whiz-a-ma-gig and, obviously, that means … Read more