So here’s what you do. You take a phrase or a word or a short teaching out of the Bible. Something like “The book of life,” or “The Son of Man,” or “The Light of the World,” or “No one comes to the Father but by me.” These phrases could mean anything. They meant something in their day, surely, but the deepest and most scholarly study in the world cannot unravel exactly what they meant.
 
But you. You somehow know the truth. You take these phrases with no study at all, and you fill them with your theology, like someone filling helium balloons at a carnival. Then you hang a little basket below your balloons and float away, so delighted in the complex theological construct that you’ve put together. And from your elevated position you lay burdens on people that you could never keep yourself. Lightning bolts thrown down from

For those unfamiliar with the Foy stories, you can find a list of them here. The context for this story is found in the collection of stories called "Foy's New Life."
 
On the Monday after their date, Charlene showed up at Foy’s cubicle. Charlene was an attractive, professional looking woman, who had been at Babcock Wellman since the very beginning. She knew all the inside information about the office and had her hands in a lot of

We knew something was wrong with Lillian’s eyes shortly after she was born. One of them was turned inward. We assumed it could be fixed. We thought we’d hand her over to a doctor, and he or she would fix her. The day they told us her eyes would never be right is burned into my memory. Jeanene and I sat staring at each other in disbelief. No parent wants to hear the word “never.” ...Read the rest at CCblogs.
 

Human beings have always gazed with wonder at the world around us. Whatever people in the past saw was their reality. What we see now is ours.

The best instrument ancient humans had was their eyes. They lived in a flat world, a world probably no larger than a hundred miles in any direction. Most would never travel to those borders, and anything beyond that was in the realm of the unknown and unknowable.

Above them were lights. A large light by day and thousands of smaller ones by night. They watched these lights carefully. They were obviously embedded in some sort of dome that covered the earth. The patterns of movement they saw in the night sky were

This is a slow project, but I am writing about the jobs that I've had in my life. I'm only on job number three. There will be some interesting stuff ahead when I get to my forklift driving days.

The High Calling is publishing this little series. My stories about my first two jobs are here and here.

And here is job #3:

Having mowed lawns and been a janitor by age 15, I was ready for something new, something that paid well. That summer a neighbor who worked for

The final chapter. Read part one and part two.

The man looked at me for a moment or two. He spun his chair around, grabbed a cup, and poured himself some coffee from a Mr. Coffee machine on the credenza behind him.

“Cup of coffee?” he asked without turning around.

“Oh, no. Thanks though.”

He spun back around and opened a desk drawer. He took out a small, flask-shaped bottle of whiskey and poured a shot into his coffee. He looked at me and raised the bottle

My apologies, but this thing has now turned into three parts. I hope not four. Final part (hopefully) is coming soon.

The man pulled the sheet off of Doug, leaving him completely naked on the metal table. He glanced over, noticed me wincing, and got a cloth to cover Doug’s midsection.

“That’s better,” I said.

He put on some latex gloves and selected a scalpel from a tray full of shiny instruments. He placed the blade near the top of Doug’s shoulder, then looked at me and said, “There won’t be any blood when

I got the news that a minister friend had died in Waco. He dropped dead right on the sidewalk. There was no warning. A witness said he looked surprised for a moment, and then fell in a heap. I hadn’t heard from Doug in years, so I was surprised to find that my name was in his wallet, listed as the person to contact in an emergency. He had a wife, but she left him years ago. I heard he was working at a church in Waco. I wondered why they didn’t call someone in the congregation.

The police told me I needed to go to Waco to identify the body. I had never done that before, so I was a little nervous. But what choice did I have? Doug was a friend, even if we hadn’t seen each other recently. He needed this last thing done for him, and apparently I was

When A Banjara Indian woman named Mary came to our church to talk to us, nine-year-old Chloe was there. Chloe had to be there. We could not let Chloe miss a chance to meet a Banjara woman, because Chloe had been praying for the Banjara for four years.

The Banjara of India are one of three major Gypsy groups in the world. As a very low-caste people, millions of Banjara live without running water or electricity. Mary told us it takes about $450 to support a Banjara pastor and family for one year and that amount allows the family to live well and within the expectations of their culture. That is also enough money to support a microbusiness that

A rlpdv dramatized scripture story.

Read part one here.

Part Two:

Jesus sat on an elevated platform near the court of the Gentiles, surrounded by a crowd of about 75 people. There were both tradesmen and laborers present along with women and a number of children. Some of the children were listening to Jesus. Others were sitting on the ground drawing in the dirt with sticks. Jesus was in the middle of one of his famous stories, and the crowd was completely engrossed in the tale. Near the back of the crowd were a couple of temple guards who had wandered over to listen.

As Jesus spoke, his eyes lifted and he looked