My friend Butch Briggs has been the beloved coach for the swim teams at a local high school for fifty-one years. Out of curiosity, I asked him how many state championships he’d won during his five decades. In his trademark gentle tone he quipped, “I’ve not won a single championship because I’ve never swum in…
Woody Cooper stood in the loud mob the day Dorothy Counts, a Black girl, enrolled in his all-White high school in North Carolina. Taunting her, some boys yelled racial slurs and threw trash at Dorothy, but Woody didn’t rebuke them, even staying silent when a woman cried out, “Spit on her, girls!” He later asked…
Author Richard Mouw tells of a black theologian from South Africa who struggled with dark memories of life under apartheid. Mouw wrote, “He told a story about an African child whose teacher asked her to define ‘memory.’ After thinking about it, the child said, ‘Memory is that thing that helps me to forget.’” Out of…
In 2023, Kenyan police intervened to end to what’s being called the “Shakahola Massacre”—in which hundreds died after following a cult leader’s directions to starve themselves to meet Jesus. The leader had allegedly promised he too would leave earth in this way after his followers did. After his arrest, he denied ever teaching this. The…
Todd invited his younger brother Alex, a recent college graduate, to come live with him in the house he’d built. He wanted to help his sibling gain some financial footing by allowing him to live rent-free for a while. After six months, Todd asked Alex to begin paying rent. Years later, Alex made an offer…
A few years ago, our church hosted refugees fleeing their country because of a change in political leadership. Entire families came with only what they could fit in a small bag. Several of our church families opened their homes, some with little room to spare. Such gracious hospitality echoes God’s command to the Israelites before…
Brenda and Eddie got in the car and began their Thursday evening ritual. “Where would you like to eat?” “Oh, Eddie, I don’t care, anywhere is fine, really.” Eddie’s been here before. “Okay, how about The Windmill?” Brenda bristles, “No, anywhere but there!” Eddie sighs. “So where then?” Brenda insists, “Really, anywhere is fine.” It’s…
When Sun’s husband had a stroke, her life took a dramatic turn. She found herself having to assist her husband with daily living activities and cope with his emotional outbursts. For seventeen years, she’d faithfully cared for her husband. When a fall hastened his decline, however, the weight of caregiving finally became too much, and…
It was Tuesday at the gym, so the people walking around the track were supposed to go clockwise. The first walkers my wife joined were doing that. But then another person walked onto the track going counterclockwise. A couple of her friends joined her—and then another. Suddenly there was chaos on the track—and it took…
In the late nineteenth century, few people had access to the great sequoia groves in the US, and many didn’t believe the reports of the massive trees. In 1892, however, four lumberjacks ventured into the Big Stump Forest in California and spent thirteen days felling the grand tree named Mark Twain. Twain was 1,341 years…