Tag Archives: Bible

Why Don’t They Fast?

Listen HERE Inquiring minds wanted to know: why were the disciples of Jesus not fasting when everyone else was? This month, my Muslim friends have been fasting for Ramadan, and my Catholic friends are fasting for Lent. Some years, I have fasted from some foods during the Lenten season. This year, I have not. SomeContinue reading “Why Don’t They Fast?”

The Old Cane Pole

My dad has a long cane pole hanging in his garage. When we visited for Christmas, I asked him to tell my sons about it. “Well, it was Papa’s,” he said, meaning his dad, “and he called it a Calcutta cane pole.” Dad went on to describe the way Papa held the pole, the wayContinue reading “The Old Cane Pole”

Ladies and Gentlemen

Listen HERE Since my family is studying Medieval History this year, our car trips have been full of The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Men of Iron, and Ivanhoe. Chivalry is not dead in these stories! Perhaps the courtesy and manners in these stories only ever lived in myth, but I still raise my daughtersContinue reading “Ladies and Gentlemen”

Spit on. Struck. Slapped.

Listen HERE There’s an awkward part of Handel’s Messiah where the alto sings, “Despised. Rejected,” over and over. In that section, she also repeats, “He gave His back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair…” It is always a little uncomfortable to think about Jesus having hair on hisContinue reading “Spit on. Struck. Slapped.”

The Burden of Advent

Did you get it right this year? Advent, I mean. Did you do it right? Did your perfectly clean house smell like gingerbread? Were all of your gifts purchased and wrapped before December began? Have you had angelic family devotions every night where your children gathered around the piano and sang Silent Night perfectly onContinue reading “The Burden of Advent”

The Blindness of Advent

Listen HERE Fourteen years ago, my grandmother gifted us an ornate advent calendar. It is shaped like a house, and each door is numbered.  She also sent little ceramic animals that I remember from my own childhood. “Put one in each door,” she wrote in her letter, “and then, each day you can see whoContinue reading “The Blindness of Advent”