Bread and Cup

Our Yom Kippur

2012-09-27T12:38:00.005-07:00

Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, which completes the annual period known in Judaism as the High Holy Days. According to Jewish tradition God inscribes in a book each person’s fate for the coming year, sealing the verdict on Yom Kippur – September 26, 2012 on this year’s calendar. So on September 27th, after 25 hours of fasting, prayers of

We Will Never Forget

2012-09-15T15:03:00.000-07:00

In the days preceding the eleventh anniversary of the infamous 9/11 attack on prime U.S. targets, many scenes on television, newspapers and Facebook restated the sincere resolve, “We will never forget.” Why? Though tragic beyond comprehension, the 9/11 horrors brought out our best – making us a UNITED States for many days. But within months sensitivities, politics, greed

Who Am I?

2012-09-12T09:51:00.004-07:00

“My I see your personal I.D.?” is a standard question when marrying, voting and flying. Asked when buying a car, a house, a passport and pharmaceutical prescriptions. Checking out a library book even requires personal I.D. Recently I learned that my hospital birth certificate – you know, the paper with my name, birth weight, footprints and embossed gold stamp - is not sufficient proof that

I'll Pay

2012-09-01T10:23:00.000-07:00

On Facebook, Carmelita Pile, a long time friend in Los Angeles posted: “My friend was going for a walk on a Saturday morning with her autistic daughter and their dog. On the way back home they decided to stop at McDonalds. But she had a problem. She could not take the dog inside. And she couldn’t leave her daughter outside with the dog." “So she decided to do something I wouldn’t have

Follow The Food

2012-08-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

As we sit at our kitchen table we enjoy looking beyond a small creek at grazing goats and horses eating breakfast and lunch while we do. [Different menu, of course.] Just inches from each horse a white cattle egret is always present, busy eating crickets, flies, grasshoppers and spiders that the grazing horse stirs up while moving about the field. We’ve learned that cattle

Who's The Greatest?

2012-08-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

Three of the gospel writers describe the Last Supper when Jesus gathered his 12 disciples together for the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Matthew describes the immediate preparation, eating the Passover meal, discussing the betrayer, instituting the Lord’s Supper, singing a hymn and leaving for the Mount of Olives. [Matthew 26:17-30].

When Heaven Goes Ape

2012-08-18T18:45:00.001-07:00

Something stirs my bones when I reflect on heavenly euphoria – the ecstatic thrill of repentance and forgiveness. “ … there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” [Luke 15:7] “ … there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who

Can We All Get Along?

2012-08-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

The angel announced, “on earth peace, good will toward men,” according to Luke in the King James Version. Yet with perpetual discord around the world, peace does not appear coming soon. The beating of Rodney King after an 8-mile high-speed chase triggered the infamous Los Angeles riots in 1992. During that chaotic week, King appeared on television pleading, “Can we all get

We Are Not Alone

2012-07-28T13:00:00.003-07:00

Today’s vocabulary has been ambushed by dreaded words: termination, foreclosure, bankruptcy. Strangling in an unrelenting economic swamp are millions of American employers and employees, families and singles, working and retireds, educated and uneducated, Christians and non-Christians. Disappointment has become the expected rather than a rarity. Then, along comes the 2012 Olympics with

Top of the Top

2012-07-21T18:07:00.000-07:00

He grew up in Palestine – actually in Kerioth, a small town some 20 miles south of Jerusalem. From his earliest years he excelled in numbers, especially in financial transactions. Simon, his father, had to be amazed at him when he suddenly left the Jewish faith he had been raised in, to follow an itinerant preacher named Jesus. This preacher was not only from a distant northern city,

Communion on the Moon

2012-07-06T05:09:00.000-07:00