Many say that we learn best from our mistakes. That is sometimes a comment made in the aftermath of perhaps a “bad” decision that has ultimately led to some undesirable and sometimes very devastating consequences.  From a parent’s perspective, I would imagine, the instinctual protection that one has for one’s children is captured within a directive like this, “Just listen to what I am telling you. …

(Originally posted 1/31/2017)

When my brother was near his death back in 1995, we sat down together and talked about his memorial service. Despite the difficulty and intensity of doing this, my brother was able to pick out a Scripture that really spoke to him. …

Does God exist outside of us?  That would depend on the definition of probably every word in that question.  Without doing that, let me rephrase the question…”Where do we experience God?”  Or maybe even more to the point, “How do we experience God?” …

Today’s Gospel selection (Mt 11:11-15) may seem a bit odd.  First Jesus seems to venerate his cousin, John the Baptist, but then ostensibly casts John in a less than exuberant light:

“Amen, I say to you,
among those born of women
there has been none greater than John the Baptist;
yet the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.…

Incarceration carries stigma.   If a person is incarcerated, whether justly or unjustly, the very fact that the person is jailed or imprisoned convinces many if not most of us that the person did something illegal that warranted the imprisonment.  Although the common law claims that a person is innocent until proven guilty, many times it seems to operate in exactly the reverse order. …