A favorite from my archives … I’ve been politically incorrect for as long as I can remember. I really should wear a sign around my neck that says “I apologize if I say something offensive,” because it feels like I am eating the soles of my shoes a few times a day. But when it...

“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” –T.S. Eliot Poet “The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.” –Robert G. Ingersoll “We can do anything we want if we stick to it long enough.” –Helen Keller “True courage is like...

We often equate darkness with sorrow, misery, get-me-the-hell-out-of-here reaction. At least I do. That’s why I keep a mammoth Happy Lite on my smallish cubicle at work. But darkness can also be a treasure. Say what? J. R. Miller writes this in “From Streams in the Desert” by L. B. Cowman: In the famous lace...

In her new paperback, “An Altar in the World,” bestselling author Barbara Brown Taylor writes: Popular religion focuses so hard on spiritual success that most of us do not know the first thing about the spiritual fruits of failure. When we fall ill, lose our jobs, wreck our marriages, or alienate our children, most of...

If I counted up all the minutes I’ve spent staring into a flame, I wonder how many years of my life that would be. Certainly more than the hours I’ve spent brushing my teeth or combing my hair. It would probably even surpass the combination of bath and shower time. For some reason (like most...