Back by popular demand, here’s a piece I published several years ago, which will be included in my new collection of parables. The relevance of this one becomes more and more apparent with each passing day …
The Resurrection Begins Now: Happy Easter!
Matthew Jones, son of my friend David, died in February at the age of 29, after a four-year battle with neuroblastoma.
The Answer to All Questions: SPLAT!
Reading C.S. Lewis this morning, one sentence caught my eye: “Christ takes it for granted that people are bad.”
Most Reverend Fred: The Shock of the Lord’s Prayer
I’ve been studying the Lord’s Prayer in the middle of the night. Not every night, but once or twice a week I find myself lying awake for a couple of hours, for no particular reason. Lately I’ve employed this time by reciting the Lord’s Prayer, very slowly, meditating on each phrase, until I fall back to sleep.
Choosing Joy at Ten Years Old: A Little Brother Story
What follows is a passage I originally wrote for my book The Mystery of Children, but which didn’t survive the final edit. It tells of a time in my twenties when I was a caseworker with Big Brothers, an organization that matches men with fatherless boys in a mentoring relationship. The stories I could tell from this period could fill a book. This is just one.
Jesus for President: The God Who Likes You
There are dozens—maybe hundreds—of names and epithets for Jesus. The photo below shows the cover of a notepad that I keep on my desk, featuring just a few of these.
The Invention of Hell: An Interview with Death
In 1989 I published a collection of parables entitled The Furniture of Heaven. Now here’s a parable from a new book I’m working on.
Christmas is God with Skin On
There’s something I want very much—something big—but I can’t make it happen. I have to wait for it, knowing it may never come. I have to wait in faith, prepared to let it go. I just have to let God have His way. I don’t even feel right about praying for this thing anymore. I’ve given up my rights. And so, in this waiting, I have peace.
The Christmas Store: My Brand New Story!
On Christmas Eve at 8:00 a.m. Frank Chase put the key in the lock of Jingle Town, his Christmas store.
Christmas to Me: A Story by Harper Lee
Like many people, one of my top ten favorite novels of all time is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Here is a Christmas story she wrote about how that marvelous book came to be. Published in McCall’s Magazine in 1961, I’ve shortened it slightly, but you can read the full version here.