I’m not a Swiftie. Never have been and don’t expect to become one. Were I to go around singing Taylor Swift music or paying a king’s ransom to attend one of her concerts, my grandchildren would say, “Act your age, old man.” Still, I did read the recent cover story on her in Time magazine.…
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I worked once on a story about church life for a ministry-oriented magazine. Though not focused on megachurches, I needed to talk with a couple people who had stopped attending one. Though it took awhile to connect, when I did one of them made a comment that struck me as odd: “I’m not even sure…
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Earlier this year, a fellow freelancer told me he had passed along my name to a publisher looking for editing help. Before the publisher and I talked, I looked over the organization’s website and liked what I saw. In our conversation, I learned the job was strictly editing: condensing material from transcribed interviews and adding…
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In mid-2021, I reconnected with a friend who had briefly been a coworker. Although we had stayed in touch over the years, mostly via email, our contacts were sporadic. That is, until he emailed me to relate his cancer diagnosis and imminent kidney removal. Not only did I start praying for Dave regularly, we began…
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When it comes to Artificial Intelligence, I feel like an old-time railroad hobo whose shoe is stuck between the rails. A locomotive is headed his way, but there isn’t much he can do about it, short of going barefoot. With AI, my leading concern is where to find the time to adapt to it. One…
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Being one of the last holdouts when it comes to digital readers, I can’t proclaim that acquiring a Kindle Fire 11 recently puts me on life’s technological cutting edge. In my case, the reason was utilitarian: a magazine I used to write for (and still read) went all-digital after its July issue. I tried poking…
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It’s hard to believe how quickly a year can pass. This month marked one year since I flew to Portland, Oregon to take in the beauty of the Willamette Valley. Aside from the combined business and personal nature of the trip, there is another reason I remember it so well: the huge gulps of time…
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Gamal and Amal Gerges are planning for Thanksgiving dinner with 150 of their closest friends. That’s how many came to the first-ever holiday meal last year at Hope Arabic Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “It was a good opportunity to expand the message of the gospel,” says Gamal, founding pastor of the mission of Harrisburg First…
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One of my favorite Bible verses is found in the book people are still trying to fathom 2,000 years after it was written: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11 MEV). Testimonies seem to have fallen out of favor in recent years. Maybe we’re…
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I have long tried to pick winners in several pro contests, but had never played fantasy football. However, in August when a friend volunteered to act as the commissioner for a Yahoo Sports league, I signed up. We had real preseason festivities. With a pair of pizzas, participants seated around an oval table, and a…
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