Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, architect, and poet, whose artistic accomplishment exerted a tremendous amount of influence on his contemporaries and on subsequent European art. The sad reality is, however, that he left many of his works unfinished. Whether or not all His creatures realize it,... read more »

Author Eckhart Tolle has described God as an  “invisible energy field” that animates us and every other thing. For singer-songwriter Annie Lennox, God is “a word to describe the life force that has created all,” and for controversial bishop John Shelby Spong, God is the... read more »

It had been one of those days. Busy, disjointed, and generally out of sorts. So I was less than thrilled when I opened the dryer to discover a red marker without its cap among the load of newly washed clothes. Assessing the damage, I sighed heavily as I realized only a few pieces of the large load... read more »

Recently, two pygmy sperm whales lay stranded near a New Zealand beach. Though volunteers, led by conservation officer Malcolm Smith, worked tirelessly, they couldn’t coax the beached whales back out into the open water. Just as they were about to surrender hope, a local bottlenose dolphin... read more »

Every romantic movie filmed in Italy includes a classic shot of the Amalfi Coast, where hairpin turns lead wide-eyed sightseers past lemon groves, vineyards, and whole towns built into the side of a mountain. It’s one of the most beautiful spots on earth. But I spent 3 days there and hated... read more »

The Bible says: “If you scorn wisdom, you will be the one to suffer” (Proverbs 9:12). How have you suffered when you’ve scorned wisdom? How have you seen someone else suffer? ... read more »

I have a confession to make. Reading through the lists of genealogies in the Bible can be less than scintillating for me. I know. Sure, they’re important. They help trace and verify a person’s roots. And they often provide essential background information as to why a story or person in... read more »

Last year, Amilcar Hill and Rahwa Ghirmatizion were married at their child’s funeral. Now before you start to cast stones (instead of rice) at them, realize that they were simply striving to honor their son Asa. Prior to the 7-year-old’s tragic death in an automobile accident, he had... read more »

In The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote: “There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft,... read more »

Evelyn Waugh is the author of such literary classics as A Handful of Dust and Brideshead Revisited. He possessed a scathing wit, and numerous other personal flaws we won’t enumerate here. After flirting with agnosticism, Waugh converted to Catholicism. Yet he still struggled. One day a woman... read more »