Share Your Bread
While digging through some old files recently, I unearthed a file folder containing a handful of typewritten letters from the late theologian, Robert McAfee Brown, who died in 2001. As a senior in college I had stumbled across a few of Brown’s books, which challenged...
The Gospel According to Bud
You need to get out more. Serving others not only transforms the community, but it transforms your own life in very real ways. By getting out and sharing yourself with others whom you might otherwise never meet, your own heart and mind are stretched in new ways,...
No Longer Strangers
One of my favorite Robert Frost poems, “Mending Wall,” tells of two neighbors who meet one day in the springtime at the stone wall that separates their two farms. As they walk along the wall together, each on their own side, they replace the stones that had fallen...
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
The first television show I ever watched as a child was Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Every weekday, Mr. Rogers invited me into his home. He sang to me. He talked to me about important matters, like divorce, and going to the doctor, and how I shouldn’t be afraid of...
Strength in Weakness
I remember, as a teenager, being invited to a friend’s church for a special “crusade” one evening. A group of Christian body builders, known as the Power Team, had rolled into town. They had come to flash their chiseled forearms, flex their six-pack abs, pull...
“Mercy in the Margins”
Some of the best books we read are those which, having already been read by us or by someone else, contain a few scribbled notes or words or comments in the margins of the pages. You pull those books off the bookshelf, fan through the pages, and eavesdrop on a...