There is a moment, just before surgery, when a pastor can pray with a parishioner. I have no idea how many times, easily hundreds, when I’ve stood next to someone right before they underwent surgery. There is something about that moment just before the anesthesiologist administers the “happy medicine” and the attendants wheel the patient to …
It’s an age-old aphorism: “Things are usually not as bad as they seem or as good as they appear.” In reality, we live most of our lives between the utterly miserable and the indescribably perfect. We get shocked and thrown into a tailspin, but then we regroup, maneuvering through the crags along life’s slippery slopes, …
Hearing the word evokes fear. Even pronouncing it carries sinister undertones. The nasty little word has an eerie echo, evoking the image of a snake slithering across the jungle floor, forked tongue probing for prey. Cancer. Repeat it slowly, “cancer, cancer, cancer,” and it grows louder with every repetition, even if you only whisper it. …
Sweet quotes about a new baby abound: “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on” (Unknown). “Every child begins the world again” (Henry David Thoreau). “Babies smile in their sleep because they’re listening to the whispering of angels” (Unknown). “Sometimes the littlest things take up the most room in your heart” (Winnie …
With my dogs pulling me on their leashes like we were an Iditarod sled team, we rounded the street corner towards the house. That’s when the car’s headlights almost blinded me in the early morning darkness. Not recognizing the vehicle, I assumed the driver to be an interloper in our neighborhood. Whomever it was, they …