One would like to think that a place of worship would provide a safe environment for people. Sadly, that no longer seems to be the case.  Not long ago, the largest mass shooting in the history of the state of Texas took place on a Sunday morning at a relatively small church in a small town. According to one report I read, every person who was in attendance that Sunday was either killed or wounded. As the news began to spread, it was widely reported that a total of twenty-six people lost their lives that day.  I was intrigued by the wording of a report posted a week later on nytimes.com. I found one…

Do you ever have one of those days where you just realize all is going well and things are good in the world? I had one of those today and as I sit here tonight trying to reflect, it makes me wonder: what was so special about today? What made today so good compared to yesterday or tomorrow? Nothing spectacular really happened. I did manage to get up on time, which is always a nice start for me. It was a normal day at school with a positive start celebrating a recent success of some of my kids. I still had lessons to teach and paperwork to complete. Some of…

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year….It’s the hap..happiest season of all.” That’s what the song says anyway. It would be great if this were truly the case in every situation. But in reality, the holidays can be stressful. There are so many things to get done, and the weather turns dark and dreary and cold. People are more depressed from December to February than during any other time of the year. And if there have been major disappointments or if there has been recent loss of life, Christmas can be far from cheerful. So here are a few tips on how to stay positive when all of the…

The turkey is all gone. The other left-overs have all been eaten or are growing fuzz in their containers in the refrigerator. The blow-up mattresses have all been deflated and put back in their containers. The blankets and extra pillows are back on the closet shelf. The sheets, towels, and tablecloths are all washed and back in the linen closets. Games and songbooks are neatly stored in the cabinet and basket in which they live.  The noise and laughter of eleven people being under one roof is gone and the house is very quiet again. The memories of funny stories and actions live on in our minds, but Thanksgiving 2017 is over. Those of…

We live in a time of labels. Everyone has to have an identity and we seem to want to group together with people based on certain labels. More than that, we live in times where we are continually standing for “rights” or “privileges” based on those labels. Some are gender-based. Some are based on ethnicity or skin color. Many in our modern culture base their identity on their sexuality. We describe ourselves by our jobs, or marital status, teams we root for, and more. It seems that, unless we fit into a certain category, we aren’t accepted by today’s world. It’s almost as if you have to check just the…

I proved a song wrong recently. It was just after 2:30 in the morning, and my phone rang. It was a wrong number, but it woke me up and jarred me enough that I struggled to fall back asleep. My mind was racing. After a little while, my mind thought of some lyrics from the classic movie “White Christmas:” When I get worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep. Then I fall asleep counting my blessings. It was the middle of the night, so I figured I’d give it a try. I started to think of blessings, reminding myself that “every good and every perfect…