During my ministerial internship, I was required to read a book the name of which eludes me after forty-five years, despite infecting me with its content. The book had a simple premise. If you nurture excellence, you will find it. The idea is a targeted restatement of Jesus’ seek, and you will find.   As you might imagine, living with that principle has brought me both happiness and disappointment commensurate with the degree of success or failure I have experienced. Excellence in any...

I am often asked where I come up with ideas to write about. Creation is calling something out of nothing. Writers create stories out of nothing except the words that lie within them. There’s something godlike in that, and if you’ve ever been in The Zone you’ve experienced it.   I’m not being sacrilegious. On the contrary, mankind, if you accept the Bible’s view, is made in the likeness and image of God. We are meant to be unique and creative. We are capable of expressing ourselves, through...

I have watched several episodes of a television show in which brides choose their wedding dresses. Not surprisingly, many of them express that they want their dress to be modern, edgy, sexy, anything but “traditional”. Generally, they all have different ideas of what traditional means. In their efforts to break with tradition, none of them seem to consider that the marriage ceremony they crave is the oldest tradition of all. Though honestly, Adam and Eve had the most untraditional wedding of...