I don’t know if you ever watched the early 2000’s TV show, ‘Monk’ starring Tony Shalboub, but I enjoyed the show from time to time.  Shaloub’s character was Adrian Monk, a brilliant former San Francisco detective.  Monk suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder.  But in spite of that – or perhaps because of that, he seemed…

Before cigarette commercials were banned on American television in 1971, I remember a really attractive cigarette commercial targeting women.  Their slogan was ‘You’ve come a long way, baby!’  The commercial was well done and if you were a woman and had never smoked, it made you want to. My family and the church I grew…

Many years ago when we were building our home in Massachusetts, we needed to pick out every last thing that would go in and on that house.  Everything from flooring, to countertops, to wood finishes, to hardware for cupboards, to the number of windows, to a cathedral ceiling (or not, and if so, how many…

“Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.”    – Acts 4.13 Amazed:  astonished; extremely surprised.   I love that word.  I love it that ‘learned men’ who met up with ‘unlearned men’…

In 2025, America will celebrate the 249th birthday of its independence from Great Britain on July 4th, a date also known as Independence Day. This day commemorates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which marked the birth of the United States of America. Independence Day from 1776…

From Paul David Tripp’s book, ‘Suffering’ –   ‘Here’s the bottom line: if you’re God’s child, you’ve been liberated from the self-centered burden of living for yourself, and you’ve been freed to live for Him. That means you’ve been called to be part of what God is doing in the lives of those around you and…

When I was young, I remember a missionary from time to time coming to our local church in Maine needing to raise support either to go to a mission field, or return to the mission field where God had called them.  First of all, I loved meeting new people – and especially those who had…

Years ago, all teachers in the large inner-city school where I taught were required to step into the hallway between classes while students were passing.  The teachers would glance at each other and give a faint smile, or nod.  I did the same –- all except for the teacher at the very end of the…

Recently, my pastor in Massachusetts delivered a sermon on ‘boundaries’ that we may be required to cross in our lifetime.  And that may happen at any point from re-locating, to being put into a new position in our job, to lifestyle changes with either a marriage or a death in the family.  My pastor’s message…

My time in Romania – July, 2024 to December, 2024 – was an unparalleled challenge – like never before.  Everything did not go wrong.  It just seemed as if it were ‘everything’.  I had only been in the country less than two weeks when I had a horrific accident – totaling my car.  The impact…