We’re so glad you’re worshipping with us today on Easter, the brightest day of the Christian year. It’s a good Sunday to be here, what with flowers galore and the smell of hardboiled eggs and the choir all spruced up and ready to pass out copies of the Hallelujah Chorus. We do apologize if you … read
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, delved into the icy tundra of Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen, Norway, is a 1,000-square-meters-large space that holds millions of seeds representing over 900,000 varieties of food crops. While it is not the only seed vault in the world, it is the largest, created by the Norwegian government in 2008 for the … read
News traveled fast after that. In Cana, the man who served as chief steward at the wedding a few years back grew thoughtful, remembering the wine that had saved the day and hinted at a promise of things to come. In Sychar, as the women met at the well in the morning to draw their … read
When I was a skinny, book-loving, pony-tailed ten-year-old, we discovered my extreme near-sightedness. My eyesight declined very gradually, and I adapted by always sitting in the front row in school. I had no clue as to how blind I was. I still remember walking out of the optometrist’s office with my brand-new, tortoise-shell glasses, looking … read
In my daughter’s class at school, if you want to put someone down in a light-hearted way, you say to them, “You look like stairs.” It is the height of clever insult in Ms. Johnston’s 5th grade classroom. To the rest of us, “you look like stairs” makes no sense. We’re a bunch of right … read