Blog Archives | Page 2 of 40

Who Cares?

June 2025

I’ve been watching an argument play out on news channels and the Internet. Bono, the Irish singer who leads the rock band U2, has been appearing on talk shows and podcasts, urging Americans to restore some of the foreign aid projects that have been canceled. This stirred up memories of my visits to faith-based clinics and hospitals around the world...

Lessons from an Owl

May 2025

One day Carl Safina, an internationally celebrated conservationist and ecologist, came across a bedraggled baby owl near death, its feathers matted with fly eggs. He named the owlet Alfie and tenderly nursed it back to life. Over the next few years he kept a record of his efforts to help the young screech owl learn to fly, hunt, find a mate, and raise a family of offspring. The resulting book, Alfie and Me, strays into science, religion, and Greek and Indigenous philosophy, ...

A Political Tightrope

April 2025

A few weeks ago I posted a note from Eastern Canada: “As believers, help us to understand what is going on in your country with your present government as we try to process it all. The ‘church’ and its leaders are silent! We are so confused as to why no one is speaking up? Can you help us understand?” I soon learned that not everyone is silent. Some 55,000 of you saw that note, and more than 2,000 responded to ...

Polishing Mirrors for Heaven

February 2025

I have visited Russia twice. The first time, in 1991, I found a nation in deep chaos. The Soviet Union was rapidly disintegrating, and that year’s news featured a failed coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev and the resulting power struggle led by Boris Yeltsin. Ultimately, Yeltsin would triumph over Russia’s diehard communists, after leading a military attack on the parliament building and introducing a new era of freedom and openness to the West. On my second visit, in 2002, I ...

Cosmic Faith

January 2025

Each year, as the period of Lent approaches, I turn to John’s poignant account of Jesus’ last supper with his disciples. The pace slows as the apostle devotes almost a quarter of his Gospel to this one intimate gathering of Jesus’ closest friends. The contrast in moods between Jesus and his disciples could hardly be greater. Earlier that week the disciples had been joined by a throng of people shouting “Hosanna!” and waving palm branches, eager to crown Jesus king ...