2021-07

As a chaplain, I often encounter homeless people who have been cast aside by society and come to the hospital for medical help - but only when they are extremely sick.  I talk about a homeless man who was very grateful that I was willing to touch him.  I use this to motivate the lesson learned in the story of the woman who was healed simply by touching the fringe of Jesus' garment.  I discuss an easy way to learn to connect with God many times a day, very briefly - by touching the fringe of God's garment.

Often difficult events in life can turn into uplifting, even funny moments.  I look at the Book of James and the author's command to use "troubles" as a reason to find "great joy."  I use a situation where a graduate student from France accused me of hating French people as a stepping stone toward examining this passage from James.

I had a very short Boy Scout career - because I used dynamite to blow up a hillside at a Scout jamboree. I use this story to talk about how a Christian should use their spiritual ears to listen to God.  We don't have the benefit that the Old Testament Prophets had: we do not hear an audible voice from God.  But if we take our time and use a disciplined approach to praying, we can hear God's voice through our spiritual ears.

When my father's mother, who was a Portuguese speaker, was near the end of her life, she gave me her prized possession, her childhood ceramic-and-leather, hand-painted doll.  I use it as a vehicle to talk about giving.  

The New Testament does not tell us how Paul died.  It also does not answer one of the biggest mysteries of the Bible: Did Paul, as he had hoped, ever make it to Spain, to the edge of their known civilized world?  I discuss the evidence surrounding this question, and I relate this question to the corrupt world in which we live.  In particular, I talk about my life in the world of arrogant, pompous academics.