When I was growing up, my father often called me “my Bethie.” No one else was allowed to use a diminutive form of my name, much less with a possessive pronoun,...

My toddler is a master of destruction. Every once in a while, I can convince him to build a block tower or a sandcastle, but he much prefers that I build...

It’s tempting to read this psalm with an “us and them” attitude. The psalmist complains about “fools” who denounce God and do terrible things, and it’s easy to think, like the...

After graduating from law school, I worked with the Environmental Review Division of a major city to identify any potentially adverse effects of proposed construction projects, assess their significance, and recommend...

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to travel to different cultures and experience a kind of shopping where prices are not on display. I ask in the local language, “How...

While a prisoner in Rome, Paul wrote a carefully crafted personal letter to Philemon, a fellow Christian and owner of an enslaved person named Onesimus, who had stolen from Philemon and...

Have you looked in a mirror and wished you were different—not just your outward appearance but the deeper, inner features? We see imperfections that no one else would notice and question...

I used to play hide-and-seek with my children. They would hide, and I would search for them. The fun of seeking was knowing that someone was hiding, and the fun of...

Everyone was affected in some way by the great uncertainty of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic was global, and social unrest reached nearly every part of the United States. We all discovered...

When I was in college, I often went to the campus ceramics center to relax from my studies by crafting earthenware dishes, vases, and other vessels. I would take a lump...