faith, hope, charity love is the greatest of these, but hope sparks the rest
Tag: Faith
Icons
Seekers, pilgrims, and believers have venerated icons for centuries. An icon is an image, picture or representation. It stands for a person or diety symbolically by representing it concretely or by analogy. Veneration means to regard with feelings of respect and reverence. Some early Christian icons were painted on the musty walls of catacombs. Later they were drawn and…
One Glance
One Glance One glance from your eyes will change me forever… forsaken to beloved ashes to beauty swarthy to lovely rejected to accepted from a desert thorn to a desert rose.
The Prickly Cactus of Ungratefulness
As a parent, one of the things I most appreciate is gratefulness from my daughter. I love to give and provide for her. That is in the DNA of parenting. In fact, I want to give and provide more and more. I love to bless her and see her smile. But an ungrateful heart can…
Knowing God’s Goodness
A very dear friend of mine lost her 12-year-old son in a fire a few years ago. It was heartwrenching, and we all mourned and grieved with the family. About three months after her son’s death, we were in Rome, Italy, for a prayer initiative with a group of people. One morning, we circled up…
haiku: light
light that pierces glass shows the possibility faith quelling evil
The Privilege of Adoption
My daughter is in the front row with Ethiopian orphans. We leave in a week for a two-week medical trip to Ethiopia. I certainly have mixed feelings about this trip. In fact, every trip has been hard for me this year. I think a decade plus of mega international traveling has caught up with me. Even…
What Happened to that Little Girl?
Last evening, we ate dinner with a lovely Italian family from our church. I especially say Italian, because they are proud of their ethnicity; and I am fascinated by it as well. We have known them for many years. They have five bright children; and their parents, in their 80’s, live with them a few months…
Finding the Quiet Center
I quell many thoughts competing for my attention as I sit in the temple. I have come to worship, not to mull over the mundane of life. The morning sun reflects pink and gold tones upon the white Jerusalem stone, as the rabbis remove the Scroll from the Ark, their prayer tassels sway as they bend and lift with tender…
Shifting Shadows
Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter’s day, how beautiful the shadows are! Alas! it is the nature of their kind to be so. The loveliest things in life are but shadows; and they come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these!…
Bonnie Saul Wilks 