Philip Yancey

The Universe and My Aquarium

Philip Yancey — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 14:16:00 +0000

Some forty years ago, when I lived in downtown Chicago, I wrote this reflection on my aquarium. It became a kind of parable with special significance in the Christmas season. A shorter version made its way into one of my books; here is the original. When I look out my downtown window I see a ... Read more

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Alpha and Omega

Philip Yancey — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:46:24 +0000

We published no blog last month due to the untimely death of Joannie Barth, who coordinated my social media for 13 years. We are still bereft. This month, a pastor reflects on encounters with both the beginning and the end of life on the same day. My newest grandchild emerged from the darkness of the ... Read more

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Learning to Write

Philip Yancey — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 08:47:45 +0000

I’ve recently begun a book about writing. Now and then I’ll include a brief excerpt from this work in progress as a blog post. These days, everybody is a writer. Several billion of us connect daily through a variety of social media platforms and email programs. For the first time in history, something you write ... Read more

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Miracle on the River Kwai

Philip Yancey — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 09:00:00 +0000

The classic movie starring Alec Guinness, The Bridge on the River Kwai, depicts life in a Japanese prison camp during World War II. This 1957 movie was fictional, but the more recent movie To End All Wars tells the true story of Ernest Gordon, a British Army captain captured at sea by the Japanese at ... Read more

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Word Play

Philip Yancey — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 07:54:50 +0000

Visitors to my Facebook page and website have proved that they love words. Here’s a test: Do you know what an eponym is? Homonyms are words with more than one meaning, such as rock, or fall. Synonyms mean nearly the same thing as another word, while antonyms mean the opposite. Acronyms combine the initial letters ... Read more

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Who Cares?

Philip Yancey — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 05:33:52 +0000

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...

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Lessons from an Owl

Philip Yancey — Mon, 19 May 2025 07:19:55 +0000

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, ... Read more

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A Political Tightrope

Philip Yancey — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 09:18:19 +0000

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 ... Read more

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Polishing Mirrors for Heaven

Philip Yancey — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 11:46:56 +0000

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 ... Read more

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Cosmic Faith

Philip Yancey — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 07:22:08 +0000

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 ... Read more

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