When I heard about the Boston marathon bombings — it happened via TV in a North Dakota seniors’ residence my wife’s parents live in — tears lept to my eyes and that terrible, familiar taste of 9/11 rage rose up inside. This time there was no creepy Osama bin Laden [...]

I have known Hoda Elsharkawi for some time, introduced to her via my cousin Karen who herself converted to Islam just 3 months before the horrors of 9/11/01. Hoda, her husband, and their children live near Boston. As someone who is Muslim, American, and a Bostonian, I believe Hoda offers [...]

I am part of an online writers group, and to honor National Poetry Month we challenged our members to take a risk, do something new, and try to pen some poetry.  As an added incentive we proposed to compile the collection into an eBook. It was an honor and a [...]

I’m no stranger to poverty, having spent the first five years of my life in shady Philadelphia neighborhoods with an alcoholic mother who was nearly destitute. My older brothers did what they had to do, watching me, making sure I was dressed, and feeding me ketchup sandwiches because sometimes that’s [...]

Our JPUSA Messages page now includes the ongoing Stations of the Cross series, presented by various members of the Jesus People USA community at church services over the past month and a half. We pray this Easter season will be one of deep thought and Holy Encounter with Christ and [...]

Years ago I was on an email list for the Bruderhof community. It was mostly a daily devotional from writers like Johann Christoph Arnold. One day there was a poem. But it wasn’t just a poem.  It was a prayer. It has become my yearly spring wake-up call. The words [...]

Eden and I are doing homework. He does a lot of it out loud because he has the family trait that he is brilliant verbally but writing things down is almost impossible. Sage has the same thing. I think I did, too. We are highly verbal, abstract, creative and terribly [...]

  I’m not a restful person. In fact, I’m the opposite. I’m restless. I fidget. I zone out. I am easily bored. I like to have plans and projects and possibilities.   Even, especially, at night, I can’t stop. My brain doesn’t shut off. EVER. It’s like a machine in [...]

Salvation Army Captain Nancy Powers released the following open letter to those supporting the SA’s Uptown Truck Feeding Program. (For more information about that controversy, fueled when Uptown’s Alderman attempted to shut down that SA outreach to street homeless here, see “Of Pigeons and Homeless in Uptown.”)

There’s a man going through your dust bin Only this time he’s looking for food There’s a tear in his eye, you don’t know him Oh but you know what he’s going through Ain’t it funny that you can’t seem to help him Bein’ sick as he staggers away Is [...]