Funerals are awkward things. At a time when people are most attuned to the hard realities of truth, we often sigh as speaker after speaker tries desperately to make a halo fit around the horns of the dearly deceased. I’ve often thought, therefore, what it would be like if someone […]
Idolatry is frequently spoken of in the Bible. Idols of the Old Testament and idols of today (in many non-Western nations) are typically statues to which people ascribed great allegiance. These idols had a strong behavioural influence of the people who worshipped them. In fact, what made them idols was […]
It was on the lawn in front of the Silverstream Manse that I lost my faith in the unimpeachable excellence of cleanliness. Cleanliness is a good thing; but, like most good things, it can be overdone. We were lounging under the shade of a giant elm—Sidwell, Clive Hislop, John Broadbanks […]
We didn’t want to see our children go through pain, so we coddled them until they grew up to be lawless brats. We didn’t want to cause our friends pain, so we refused to ever confront them about their self-destructive patterns. We didn’t want to cause our bodies pain, so […]
“He’s missing the forest for the trees” is a saying which means that a person can get so caught up with the details that they end up missing the main point. Time and time again I have seen myself fall into this trap where the little things, though important, become […]