Author Archives: Bill

06.03.2022 – On Giving Up Childish Ways

Becky and I are back from Missouri where we spent a week or so with our grandchildren while our son and his wife were off on a trip celebrating their anniversary.  It was a good, if exhausting time for us, but we are mostly so glad we can help in such a way.

Micah, the second youngest of our grandchildren, will turn three years old in August and is a happy, talkative, and joy-contagious toddler. Micah loves books and loves having an adult read to him. I often took the reading assignment, especially as Becky became the favorite of the 16-month old who was a little apprehensive about his parents being suddenly gone.  Becky and Gabriel became great friends.

By far, Micah’s favorite read-aloud book was a complete collection of Curious George stories, “Monkey George,” as he calls him.  If any of you have trouble sleeping at night, might I recommend the complete collection of Monkey George stories.  Read them aloud and you will be in deep slumber in no time at all.

In addition to Monkey George, we had repeated reads of Ferdinand the Bull and the Story of the Little Gingerbread Boy.  And once in awhile one of the cardboard books that are more Gabriel’s speed than Micah’s. Continue reading

05.18.2022 – Appreciating What We Have

For the past several months, Becky and I have been working with an Afghan refugee family as they settle into life in the United States.  We count all the work as joy.

Last night our friend Azizullah, husband and father in the family, sent a WhatsApp message with the photo you see above – a photo of a school in Taliban-dominated Afghanistan.  Far from home, with a heart that breaks for what is happening in Afghanistan, and adjusting to life in our strange new world, he wrote, “We must appreciate what we have.”

Yes.

This morning Becky and I leave for Missouri where we will spend a week and a few days with our family there.  Grandparent time!  We can hardly wait.  Along the way, we will undoubtedly grumble about the mid-four-dollar-a-gallon (or more) cost of gasoline. But we get to see family!  Azizullah’s words, “we must appreciate what we have,” should still our grumbling.

All for now. More Observations when we return home.

05.13.2022 – Metaphorical Grace, How Sweet the Sound

I will be preaching at a church in our presbytery this week and I am looking forward to it. The text I am preaching from 1 Peter 2 has me making a point about the Christian life and how, while we come to Christ at our conversion, our discipleship is not locked into a point or period in time.  I was thinking of saying something about becoming a Christian is not just about getting your ticket punched; you know, my way to heaven secured.  But then I wondered, “do you still get your ticket punched?”

We used to ride the train from Trenton, New Jersey, to Penn Station in Manhattan, and the conductor always punched our tickets.  It turns out, though, the very month we left Langhorne, New Jersey Transit quit punching tickets. Now the conductor scans the QR code on your ticket, or better yet, the app on your phone.

Another metaphor bites the dust.  We may talk about tuning in and hanging up, about cabooses and different tacks, but the realities on which the images are based have mostly disappeared. Continue reading

05.06.2022 – You Can’t Master Divnity


Becky and I will be at a graduation ceremony tomorrow and are glad to be able to celebrate with the graduate and his family.

The degree to be granted is a Master of Divinity, an MDiv, the professional degree required for ordination in our denomination and many others.  An MDiv is no slouch of a degree. It typically takes three or four years to earn and requires learning and using Biblical Greek and Hebrew.  Along with biblical exegesis and systematic theology, students must take courses in preaching and counseling and church leadership.  I may be biased, but I think those who earn an MDiv have done some impressive work.

Our friend, no surprise, has proven to be an exceedingly able student and we will celebrate his success.  And more than most graduations I have attended, this one really does feel like a commencement, a beginning.  Our friend has been doing full-time ministry and still must pass a series of ordination exams, but this event seems to be a particularly significant – even ominous – marker.  If there was any doubt about God’s call to ministry and his claim on our friend’s life, this event seems to dispel it.

I happen to think our friend is not only now well-equipped academically for ministry, but he is also spiritually gifted and emotionally and relationally exceedingly able for what lies ahead.

Congratulations, good friend. Continue reading

04.29.2022 – Give ’em That Old Time Religion

Youth Group, First Presbyterian Church, Santa Cruz, California – circa 1980

The headline caught my attention.  A recent Atlantic magazine article appeared under words, “Why American Teens are so Sad.”  The piece is worth reading if you can get past the paywall.  But whether you read it or not, let me highlight a bit of how the writer explains teen sadness, and then add an observation of my own.

Journalist Derek Thompson begins with this disturbing statement:

The United States is experiencing an extreme teenage mental-health crisis. From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded.

Thompson goes on to say that this crisis is neither too old nor too new.  He dispels three fallacies we might use to dismiss our concern. Continue reading