Let’s be real. Everyone knows the story of Abraham, but how about the comparable story of the widow of Zarephath? Both were about sacrifice and beloved sons. Abraham delivered his son Isaac to the funeral pyre—and would have killed the boy, had not God’s angel intervened. The widow of Zarephath also saw her son on death’s doorstop, although—unlike Abraham—such a condition...
Read MoreRead More
40,000 human skulls. They haunt me. Six weeks ago, I was in Europe, celebrating twenty-five years of marriage and visiting the towns along the Danube River. It was a wonderful trip—yet what I can’t get out of my mind is the sight of 40,000 neatly stacked human skulls, in the Sedlac Ossuary in Kutna Hora, a small town in the Czech...
Read MoreRead More
She had freckles on her face. She kept standing up to tug her short-shorts down; they pinched her, she said. She told me her name was “Josi,” without an “e.” And that she was eleven, in middle school, and that her school was “really safe — “that nothing ever happens there.” Her long legs would make her a good tree-climber. I hope she...
Read MoreRead More
Where do mothers find the strength to let their children go? One of the more dynamic women in scripture shows up this Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary: Hannah. Known for her great bargain with God, her story is full of emotion, pathos, and yearning. She also leaves us with a range of questions similar to ones faced by women in...
Read MoreRead More
A well-beloved ambassador arrives in many churches throughout the country this Sunday via the RCL (Track #1) lectionary: Esther. The inspiration for the Jewish feast of Purim, she is one of only a handful of biblical women who regularly crosses the divide between religious and secular worlds. Memorialized in books and films, she is beautiful, brave, kind, patient and smart. Remarkably...
Read MoreRead More