The viral image of an injured Syrian boy, orphaned by war and sitting alone in an ambulance while still covered with the debris of destruction, haunts every soul who sees it. He should be crying, but he just stares. Is…
We are taught as children the importance of honesty and decency, but those qualities are threatened when we learn to expect rewards for exercising them. That’s why we must avoid self-righteousness at all costs and learn the art of self-examination.…
If you’ve visited or occupied a hospital room in recent years you’ve seen the smiley face pain scale. This is a tool doctors use to determine your level of discomfort. It goes from a smiley face 0 (no pain) to…
Many call our current era Godless. Church attendance is down and crime is up. Nevertheless, whether they know it or not, people of every background are helping the founder of Christianity accomplish what he told his disciples in this Sunday’s…
I have this fantasy when I’m on the receiving end of a particularly good or bad customer service experience. I think of myself as the head of the featured company in an episode of Undercover Boss, the show where CEOs…
Some people live by a simple nihilistic philosophy: “Life’s a witch, then you die” (but they don’t say witch). Those are the same people who might take strange comfort from this Sunday’s more poetic take on the same sentiment as…
Last weekend, after the murder of three police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the local police chief and the sheriff used their press conference explaining what happened as an opportunity for a national call to prayer. They didn’t use one…
The most beautiful eulogy I ever heard was also the shortest. It was spoken about 20 years ago and was for my great aunt, who devoted her life to being God’s servant. She was a nun, and what one of…
If you are a fan of the old Seinfeld show (a sitcom that earned eternal life in rerun heaven), you probably quote lines from your favorite episodes. Although its creator called this a show about nothing, something always happened to…
In the wild, wild Middle East that was the Jerusalem of Jesus’ time, his disciples sometimes had to depend on the mercy of their quarry to successfully spread the gospel. Our gospel reading this Sunday (Lk 10:1-12, 17-20) indicates how…