Skeptical Faith

Google Image Of all the news of the past few weeks, none so moved me as the conviction of Dylann Roof in the murder last year of nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston. I wasn’t moved so much because he was convicted. The evidence was overwhelming and included Roof’s confession. No, it was the retelling of the horrific crime, the powerful reminder about the degree to which racism can infect us and an overwhelming feeling of solidarity with my fellow Christians who were the victims of Roof’s terror. Just looking at their faces in the photo above breaks my heart. As you may recall, Roof, who was 21 years old, entered the church during an evening Bible study. For nearly an hour, he sat among a dozen people before opening fire during the participants’ final prayer. Testimony during his trial revealed that Roof was filled with racial hatred and spent months planning to murder black people. According to a National Public Radio accoun

Google Image In 1971 when he was down on his luck, Larry Stewart was given a free breakfast from the owner of the Dixie Diner in Houston, Mississippi. He had been fired just before Christmas two years in a row, in 1978 and 1979. Around Christmas of 1979, while nursing his wounds at a drive-in restaurant during a very cold day, he noticed a waitress working the cars outside. “It was cold and this car hop didn't have on a very big jacket,” he recalled, “and I thought to myself, 'I think I got it bad. She's out there in this cold making nickels and dimes.'" He gave her $20 and told her to keep the change. "And suddenly I saw her lips begin to tremble and tears begin to flow down her cheeks. She said, 'Sir, you have no idea what this means to me.'" That experience was part of what turned Stewart into the famous “Secret Santa” of Kansas City. Another part is that he made a lot of money in cable TV and long-distance calling. Before his

Google Image As a kid, I wasn’t a fan of Sundays. After Mass, my family took it easy. Usually, a big Sunday dinner with roast beef or chicken was followed by my parents’ nap. I had little appreciation for their need for rest. I wanted activity, fun, action. The last thing I wanted was rest. So the traditional Christian idea of “eternal rest” in the afterlife had little appeal to me. As I grew older, I had a much greater appreciation of the idea and joining the ranks of the elderly, I have an even better understanding of it. Many older people, even if happy with their lives, are less enthused about hanging around in a world that’s become foreign to them. Many look forward to “eternal rest.” And you can certainly understand the appeal of rest in earlier centuries when the vast majority of people spent their days in endless physical toil. Hectic Activity and Stress But rest can appeal to even young people today. Being retired, I easily ignore the challenges and fatigue th

Google Image A friend recently described to me his near-death, or out-of-body experience. Like many who have had such experiences, he said he is a changed man. He is religious in a way he never was before and he doesn’t fear death. I've written about this in these blogs before, recounting that as a journalist back when the subject was less well-known, I interviewed three or four people who said they had near-death experiences. All seemed to be sincere and all believed their experiences were real. And all of them, including the man with whom I spoke recently, described the great, white light they saw – some say in which they were enveloped. The 2014 movie, Heaven Is For Real – about a boy who told his parents he had visited heaven while he was having emergency surgery – elicited skepticism but revived the topic among the public. The media reports that there is a remarkable similarity in experiences among people who have had such experiences. An on-line article in the

Google Image For almost a year, construction crews have been busy around our house, which abuts a street being reconstructed. Some of the work is on our property or on property we recently sold to the city for construction. The supervisor on the site is a 6ft. 5 in., 250-pound seasoned worker named Larry. He has a big mustache partially hiding a sun- and wind-weathered face. I would guess he’s in his early to mid-60s. His voice is deeper than the sound of the bulldozers whose drivers he oversees. He seems never to rest, always on the job, consulting with workers and gently directing them. I use the word “gently” above advisedly because Larry is a Teddy Bear. I’ve had to meet with him at least once a week, often with his supervisors or workers, and I’ve never heard him raise his voice or speak with anything less than courtesy and kindness. Early on he provided me with his cell phone number and often urges me to contact him with any concerns. Much to his credit,