Here’s a different kind of Christmas song on which to meditate this Advent… Revelation 15 captures the worship of those who have endured  through the torment unleashed on believers by the Christ-loathing beast. This beast, demanding unquestioning fealty, adoration and obedience from his followers, tried wringing worship from the Christ-ones. As God’s final judgment is…

Shortly after I began homeschooling in 1992, I responded to a “help wanted” note I found at an  online homeschool message board I frequented. The editor of this magazine was looking for curriculum reviewers. I tossed my hat in the ring, and ended up reviewing language arts and social studies curriculum for the magazine for most…

Some cliches live on in our language long after their original context has faded. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” is one of those cliches. Though no one I know has brought their market wagon into the wheelwright’s barn to get some grease applied to a wheel’s grinding squeal, the truism embedded in the original…

This is a blurry image, taken with my cell phone, of the organizational tool I use to order my work at the school. It’s a crumpled December calendar. The little picture doesn’t clearly show the scribbed notes, arrows, crayoned boxes, lists in the margins, or the extra thoughts on the post-it note, attached at the…

When I was a little kid, I attended a couple of years of “Sunday School” at the temple to which my parents belonged. They couldn’t afford the whole Hebrew school business, which would have put me on the fast track to a Bat Mitzvah at age 13. The temple offered religious education on Sunday mornings…

Cindy (not her real name) had stopped attending Young Life meetings, and was partying pretty hard again. She acknowledged as much when I asked her what was going on. Cindy had made a profession of faith in Christ, and tried the Christian life for a few months. Then she walked away. “It’s not for me,”…