On summer evenings at my grandparents’ lake cottage, there was terrible televisions reception and too many mosquitoes to go outside so card games were the usual fare. Sometimes it was Hearts with two decks of cards because there were so …

For most of us, the word provoke carries a negative connotation. It is what I used to do, often in very subtle ways, to irritate my brother until he would finally haul off and slug me. Then of course, I …

This week the satirical website “The Onion” posted a photo of Pope Francis holding a package of Oreos in each hand with the headline, “Pope Francis Reverses Position on Capitalism After Seeing Wide Variety of American Oreos.” It caused me …

When Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” he is asking them what they tell others about him. Peter chimes up, “You are the Messiah.” Of course, two seconds later he tells Peter, “Get behind me …

I don’t know how many Pharisees there were in the first century. And I don’t know how many how many went around kvetching about the stuff Jesus did and said but I think it was probably just a few. There …

The jazz standard, “Body and Soul” has been around since 1930. It has been recorded by legends such as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald, and as recently as 2011 as a duet by Tony Bennett and the late …

The tragic loss of two 14 year-old boys in Florida last month brought back a lot of memories. While the Internet lit up with outrage at the parents for letting two boys go fishing in a 19-foot boat, I thought …

Feeding the multitude is the only pre-crucifixion story about Jesus that occurs in all four gospels. I conclude from that that the early church found it to be particularly important. In John’s telling of the story, it was close to …

Dr. Seuss, in his wonderful book, “The Sneetches,” tells the story of two groups of creatures that were identical with the exception of one little thing: half of them had stars on their bellies. “Those stars weren’t so big. They …

Pentecost is the fiftieth day since Easter Sunday. The first one just happened to be on a Jewish festival that celebrated the harvest and the giving of the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, so Jerusalem was probably filled with …

It has been a lousy news week. Last weekend, one of the strongest earthquakes in the last century struck Nepal causing massive damage, a death toll expected to exceed 10,000 affecting more than 8 million. Nepal is a country woefully …

Two very different responses to the call this week: Mark tells us about Jesus hanging by the Sea of Galilee and inviting brothers Simon and Andrew and then James and John to join him. Not sure if it is a …