A long absence I cannot recall the last international missions conference I went to. This is in part due to the brain’s recent lowered recall reflex, as much as due to a commitment made two decades back to reduce participation. …

Why my child, do you live as if I did not understand your life? That you are scrambling, anxious, frantic, sleepless? Did the sun not rise this morning? And when you least expected it, a reprieve or a kindness came? Or did you fail to notice how the birds sing…

Capernaum. If you don’t know it, I understand. Place names only stick when a place has found a sticking point in the heart. So, to be honest, many places, no matter how often I have read of them and maybe even studied to get the context for a text, don’t…

Byzantine I must say I know next to nothing about the Byzantines, with vague ideas of its association with Rome, the Orthodox church, the iconoclasm controversy, incense-filled churches, and the Crusades. I know better now and will attempt to share some of it here. Important land tracts and strategic locations…

It can be so hard to capture what one feels from the sights, smells, interactions, and experiences on a trip. But some things will stand out, and the more personal it gets, the more meaningful it is, and the more worthwhile the expense and time. These are definitely worth recording…

Deja vu — old familiar feelings, flashbacks, increased heart rate, and even, the mind scrambling over options of how to have a different trajectory perhaps. We all get it. And when it comes to that family member who appears to be going on a predictable groundhog round, we groan inwardly…

Our ideas of snow are kind ones. We gravitate towards postcard images of pristine white snow, thick like cream on cars and roofs. We visualize gentle snow drifts as we stand among trees relinquishing foliage and bracing for increased darkness and exposure of their skeletal forms. Video footage of a…

More than territories or trophies, each of us fights this one battle most insistently: we want to be happy. It seems so fundamentally necessary that we use it to justify all kinds of behaviours: as long as he/she/they are happy. Evidence for this happy-ness search is everywhere we look, and…

This God coming as human. It can sound like a charming fable, an ancient myth — a supernatural being shape-shifting, as it were. Except it isn’t — not when we examine the details. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I have never been good with details, being more of a…