The Back Page

Recently, I visited over coffee with a pastor I had never met. I had anticipated the meeting eagerly. He was, after all, a recent arrival in the community, and I believed we might have a good, collegial relationship. I still hope for this. He asked a lot of questions about cultural, political and doctrinal matters….

Joy is a hot topic right now. I base this conclusion on my extensive research — two books I read recently. They are: Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans (Knopf, 2017), and Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and…

“I see dead people.” —Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), The Sixth Sense (1999) The church calendar has two three-day seasons, if you can call them that. I don’t know what to call them, actually. Three successive days in which something really holy and mysterious is going on — that’s all I know. The first is Good…

Waffle2 [wof-uhl] Informal Verb, waffled, waffling. to speak or write equivocally: to waffle on an important issue. Equivocally [ih-kwiv-uh-klee] Adverb in a deliberately ambiguous or questionable way. in a way that is doubtful in nature or of uncertain significance It comes as a surprise to me to realize how much we dislike hesitation, waffling, indecision…