Call it the “Texit” parable.

Has anyone ever had any success in handling a situation by shouting, “Everybody just calm down!” Didn’t think so.

Almost a half-century ago, comedian George Carlin recorded his controversial “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” monologue.

I, as I suppose many of you, was fascinated and deeply troubled by what I witnessed on my TV screen on Wednesday. I am equally fascinated by the various responses that followed yesterday and today.

We celebrate the birth of Christ near to the darkest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The light of the world shining in the darkness. This year, for many, the celebration will be either changed, muted, or nearly non-existent.

Rather than preparing for a joyous Christmastide, believers are making tough decisions about how to celebrate during a season some call COVID-tide.

WASHINGTON — Facing a federal lawsuit from the Archdiocese of Washington over rules prohibiting large gatherings — including Christmas services — during the coronavirus pandemic, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a late-night order Wednesday modifying the city’s rules on worshi…

With America facing a bitterly divisive election, Episcopal Church leaders did what they do in tense times — they held a National Cathedral service rallying the Washington, D.C., establishment.

What may be the earliest recorded Christmas sermon on which the birthday of Christ was celebrated by the church on Dec. 25 was preached in the year 380. It was delivered by Gregory of Nazianzus.

Most of us, by now, will have emerged from our food binge and begun preparing for the heart of the “holiday season.”

If ever there was a time for us to celebrate Thanksgiving, this is it.

The relationship between Christianity and the military has, from the beginning, been theologically, practically, and emotionally challenging.

A typical Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks speech would open with a self-deprecating jab at long-winded rabbis, then flow into a blend of Hebrew texts, science, law, literature, current events and the scriptures of other faiths.

The local Madisonville Noon Kiwanis organization has announced the unfortunate decision to forgo its traditional Christmas parade this year to keep members and the community safe from the spread of coronavirus. But, they did announce an alternate community event — “Home for Christmas” Parade…

The election is over. At the time I am writing this we have a good idea of who will serve the next four-year term, but it is not yet certified. I expect this will be extended for a few more days yet. As it should be.

Conservative patriarch Edmund Burke died in 1797 in Beaconsfield, England.

I can recall a few times in my life when I looked around and discovered that I was either a) lost or b) in a situation that suddenly grabbed my attention. If you were to ask me for a play by play of how these things happened, I could have told you. Every decision made sense based on the one …

I shared here a couple of years ago a story from a camp I directed for 11-13 year-olds in Wisconsin. They are two-week sessions, so there is time to take on some significant camp improvement projects for those who want to take part. One particularly warm day one of the young men said to me, …

For pastors in America’s Protestant pulpits, Election Day 2020 is starting to look a lot like 2016.

What I hope to do each week is to help those who read these 800 or so words to slow down enough to give thought to things we already know, along with some historical and spiritual perspective.

There are signs that we are living in a world of emotionally charged, high anxiety. We are a glob of an emotionally entangled mess. We see this in the hyped-up presentation of news editorials. We see it in the “outrage” of people who have no idea of any facts, only the emotional content of a…

During a normal White House race, the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner allows the candidates to don formal attire, fire off snappy one-liners and make subtle appeals to Catholic voters.

I watched it. I watched the whole thing. I watched the worst example of public discourse (I know it cannot be called that) I have ever witnessed. There have been more colorful name-calling examples, mostly by newspaper editors or party spokespersons. One of the more famous was penned about J…

Christian history is fascinating in every century but the transition in the fourth century from persecuted to being the official religion of the empire is difficult to top.

I really hate to break this to all our young voters, but the current election cycle is not the most important one in our history. We are in no greater existential national crisis today than we were in the years immediately after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Or around 1812. Or …

Cole & Durham Insurance, A Lawton Insurance Agency, retains its Best Practices status, once again becoming a part of an elite group of independent insurance agencies around the United States.

I sure hope we can work through the next year together. The key here is “work.” It is one thing to have an ideal, it is another to work toward it with others.

There is a constant fight for who gets to tell stories of the past. It is a matter of perspective. I was taught the “received story” of the United States as a child. The telling of that story has changed some since then, but it is still basically the same story.

Silence

Take Time for Beauty

Do you remember the kid or the co-worker who never pulled their weight in group projects? They were quite happy to coast along and let everyone else do the heavy lifting and take an equal share of credit. But then, if something went wrong, because they had not done any work, they could quite…

Remember when it was socially acceptable to shake hands with others?

I do not write to pick sides, although sometimes it may be obvious which side I am on. Some people do write to pick sides. That is not my intention. I write to think on paper, and in doing so anyone that reads is carried along with my personal attempts to make sense of the world I am in. Agr…

It didn’t matter where Pete Buttigieg traveled in Iowa for the early Democratic Party primaries — voters kept asking similar questions.