Photo Credit: ajrehn.files.wordpress.com This coming Sunday, March 3, we will hear John’s version of the Cleansing of the Temple which is placed at the beginning of Jesus’s public life, whereas in Matthew and Mark it is placed near the end of his life. John gives the story a fuller treatment going so far as to... Continue Reading →

Photo Credit: Mary Ann Flannery, S.C. I have a very informative map of the Holy Land which I received as part of the tour I had taken two years ago in September. On one side is an enlarged display of where Jesus traveled during his mission along with an accompanying sidebar legend indicating exactly where... Continue Reading →

Screenshot This is an honest question. And it begs for an answer. Let’s look at a quick history and then how charity fits into the answer. Black History Month began first as Black History Week, an initiative of Carter G. Woodson, a founder of the Association for the Study of African American History. The son... Continue Reading →

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com The admired American philosopher, Martha Nussbaum, wrote in an essay titled, “Beings Entitled to Dignified Existence,” about an incident when the “Roman leader Pompey in 55 B.C.E., staged a combat between humans and elephants. ‘The animals perceived they had no hope, and, according to Pliny who recorded the incident, they entreated the... Continue Reading →

Photo Credit: Adobe Stock Well, I got up one morning last week and I checked my weather app so I knew how to dress for the day. Whoopee! I think or say or yell! Big snowstorm coming. I’m immediately transported to childhood. Hope there’s no school. I’m drawn to my childhood years. Gotta call pals... Continue Reading →

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com Recently, I’m inundated with this question. I think you are as well. Our country teeters on a shaky fulcrum, a harbinger of days and months ahead as we near political conventions, primary elections, and finally general elections. Many of us are concerned more about the safety of persons doing their civic duty... Continue Reading →

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com She is wandering around the cavernous chapel, a diminutive figure searching for persons she knows who have difficulty hearing. She is a retired teacher of the hearing impaired, a knowledgeable source about hearing aids and their small radios for volume control which she carries with her. She is armed also with a... Continue Reading →

I am always happy to receive a regular newsletter by Maria Popova titled, The Marginalian. A recent edition looked like it could serve for some reflection on the New Year widening in front of us as you are reading this. Popova is a Bulgarian-born, American-raised author, poet, literary and arts commentator, and a cultural critic who... Continue Reading →

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com Do you find resolutions confounding? Do you dislike making them because you know you will break them? Do you think you often make them when you are fervent and dedicated to an issue or concern and you’re afraid if you make more resolutions based on these concerns, you’ll just toss them into... Continue Reading →

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com All of us are so swept into the meaning of Christmas not only for ourselves but for others we know who are suffering losses over the past year and simply cannot adjust that empty chair at the family dinner celebration. These losses represent the angst of having given a loved one up... Continue Reading →