The Two Loves: Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

Neighbors, am I right? In the sleepy little neighborhood where I grew up, we had some really interesting people. Some were quiet and we hardly heard anything from them like George and Jannie across the street. Some had kids the same age as my sister and I, which created a revolving door effect in those

Four Chords and a Cloud of Grace: Art and Worship in the Wesleyan Style

In a bar, they’re making PB&J’s to put in a sack lunch. When they finish, the group will hear someone talk about their struggle with heroin or paying the rent or depression. The people will console, cajole, and try in various ways to support the person speaking. A speaker stands up and shares a few

The Two Loves: Loving God

Love in many forms The immortal bard, William Shakespeare once wrote, “Love is a many splendored thing.” Then in 1960, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant revised that to say, “Love Hurts” and a few years later a Scottish rock had a top five hit screaming about it. More recently, around 1979, Peter Wolf and Seth Justman

Walking Through the Storm: A Place in This World

Stop the World and Let Me Off I remember as a kid the first time I rode the Mindbender. It’s a roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia near where I grew up. It goes up about eighty feet then drops into three vertical loops. A friend of mine talked me into it. He was

Walking Through the Storm: Suffering in Perspective

Newspapers and the world beyond Every Saturday and Sunday morning of my younger childhood was more or less the same. I woke up before anyone else in the house, got an oversized bowl of cereal and turned on Saturday morning cartoons. Since I got up a few hours before everyone else, I had the TV