We scooted into our Uber outside LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Somewhere along the route to Brooklyn, our driver, Ahmed, let us know he was fasting for Ramadan. “Ahh, the holiest month for Muslims,” I said. “No food or water, till 6 P.M. You must be famished.” (It was 4 P.M.) I saw him …
His eyes darted back and forth, like a caged animal searching for an escape. Or maybe he was trying to avoid locking eyes with mine. It’s been years since that day, early in my pastoral ministry, when I served in Alabama. A relative of a relative who was a member of my church asked me …
I poked my head into a colleague’s office door at Campbellsville University. Ray had known about my brother since his ALS diagnosis two years ago. I let him know Mark had passed. Ray was at his desk when I told him, mid-task, mid-day, in the ordinary flow of work. What he did next has stayed …
I recall years ago hearing a preacher say he actually enjoyed driving distances to make hospital visits to parishioners. “Alone in my car: the one place no one can get to me,” he said, ruing the fact that he felt constantly at people’s beck and call. That was before cell phones. Only in the early …
Our 16-year-old Schnauzer, Max, looked up at me from the veterinarian’s examination table. His once sparkling eyes were cloudy. That tongue that once flopped back and forth, cheek to cheek, was now listless. Where I once had to hold him tight on this examination table, so eager was he to jump down, he now rested …