As a child, I never liked to see people unhappy. I always wanted to do what I could to help. When I was about five, we went to a local nursing home to sing for the residents. While we were there, we met a lady in a wheelchair who really wanted to go home.
Crossroads: Holy, Holy, Holy
May 31, 2021 by
God is different from everything else in our universe. He is the Creator, and the only One who is holy. I am most reminded of God’s holiness during communion and during Holy week.
Crossroads: What We Do Matters to God
February 15, 2021 by
I tend to give up soda every year for Lent. Part of it is because there’s a ton of sugar in soda and it’s not good to drink it every day. But part of it is also because soda is my crutch.
Connections 10.11.2020: The Song of the Ruthless
October 4, 2020 by
The prophet has in mind a mighty city that God has brought down because of its oppressive practices. The ruthless oppressors had been making a lot of noise and doing a lot of damage, but God silenced and stopped them.
Connections 02.09.2020: Light in the Darkness
February 2, 2020 by
Most contemporary biblical scholars believe that Isaiah 56–66 contain the words of a prophet who preached in the tradition of the eighth-century prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem to the Jewish people after their return from exile in Babylon.
Formations 11.10.2019: Resurrection Hope
November 3, 2019 by
Many Americans observe Halloween by focusing on costumes, decorations, and candy for the kids. Some of us don’t know the origins of the day or the one that follows on November 1, All Saints’ Day.
Worship: Participation
August 27, 2019 by
Last week we read about Isaiah’s vision of God in the temple in chapter 6. Isaiah obviously heard God’s call and opened his heart to whatever God wanted to tell him.
Connections 03.24.2019: An Invitation
March 17, 2019 by
In the New Revised Standard Version, the title for this section of Scripture is “An Invitation to Abundant Life.” In some Christian traditions, the main focus is the afterlife.
Formations 12.16.2018: “Just Hand Me a Baby”
December 9, 2018 by
Most scholars agree that the words of comfort in today’s lesson were first spoken to Jewish people near the end of their decades-long exile in Babylonia. The national shame of the exile will soon be over, the prophet proclaims. Now it is time to “prepare the way of the LORD” (v. 3) so that the captives may return home.
Formations 12.02.2018: Remembering Our Roots
November 25, 2018 by
For many Chamorus, the indigenous people of Guam, genealogical research has proven to be a powerful tool for connecting to their roots. As Chloe Babauta writes, historically there hasn’t been a lot of information on genealogy on Guam. People would know they were related, but would not know how.
Broken Spirits and Dry Bones
May 15, 2018 by
We have a friend in the Bible named Isaiah. God was looking for someone to deliver some hard words to God’s people. Isaiah had an incredible encounter with God involving an angel and some coal (Isa 6). And after this experience, he told the Lord “I’ll go, send me.”
Formations 01.07.2018: The Suffering Servant
December 31, 2017 by
Lately I’ve been reading about Bartolomé de las Casas. A sixteenth-century Dominican friar, Las Casas is best remembered for his protests against the dominant forms of Spanish colonial and evangelical activity—the wars of the conquest and the encomienda system.
Formations 12.03.2017: The Lights of Christmas
November 26, 2017 by
One of my favorite parts of Christmas is the lights. We deck our houses with tiny electric lights. We drape lights on Christmas trees. We go to services on Christmas Eve where the light of dozens of handheld candles bathes the sanctuary in a warm, amber glow.
Formations 06.25.2017: A Little Child Will Lead
June 18, 2017 by
Margaret Wise Brown transformed children’s literature by bringing new educational theories from the Bank Street School into her stories. She held that children, unlike adults whose understanding of the world made it uninteresting, experienced the world as strange and mysterious.
Connections 01.22.2017: The Speed of Light
January 15, 2017 by
Light travels at 186 thousand miles per second. That means it travels about six trillion miles in a year, so that’s the distance in a light year. The sun is “only” about 0.000016 of a light year (93 million miles) from Earth; its light reaches us in about eight minutes twenty seconds.
Connections 01.15.2017: The Polished Arrow
January 8, 2017 by
My older daughter Samantha is twelve. She adores fashion, hairstyles, and accessories. For Christmas, someone gave her a gift card to Claire’s, a small boutique that carries earrings, hair accessories, and other novelties.
Connections 01.08.2017: Going Under
January 1, 2017 by
I was watching a made-for-television film about Jesus. In its depiction of Jesus’ baptism, he joined John in the Jordan River. As they stood in the river, which came up to their waists, John poured water over Jesus’ head.
Connections 01.01.2017: New Year’s Dawn
December 25, 2016 by
It isn’t every year, of course, that Christmas and New Year’s Day fall on Sundays. But I think Sunday suits both holidays. When I was young, our family had a piece of brown stone about the size of both of my hands. It was flat, polished on the front, and rough on the edges. I always thought its shape resembled my home state of Georgia.
Crossroads: Everlasting
November 14, 2016 by
Isaiah reminds us that God is our strength. When it’s hard for us to keep going, God is there, holding us up. Maybe you’re having a tough time at school. Maybe there’s a bully who keeps picking on you and you don’t know what to do anymore.
Connections 09.25.2016: The Power of Promise
September 18, 2016 by
As followers of God, we are sometimes given the delicate responsibility of speaking for God. But we must also listen to God to be sure we are proclaiming truth instead of opinion or speculation. Isaiah was certainly a prophet who listened to the Lord.
Connections 09.18.2016: Getting Personal
September 11, 2016 by
Speaking in generalities is one thing. Getting down to specifics is another. Generally speaking, believing that God runs the universe is easy, but trusting God to take care of you is hard.
Connections 09.11.2016: The Hope of “That Day”
September 4, 2016 by
If you’re a regular reader of Coracle—or a regular participant in a Bible study class that uses it—you may or may not read the Scripture references before you read the articles. Today, I encourage you to look up Isaiah 25:6-10a and read it thoughtfully before you go any further.
Formations 08.28.2016: Clinging to the Past or Embracing the Future?
August 21, 2016 by
In 1950, there were 67,000 coal miners working in eastern Kentucky. By 2014, however, that number had declined to only 7,000. The industry is clearly in a state of steep decline, and this has huge repercussions for those who have made their living in the mines.
Formations 02.14.2016: The Lenten Fast
February 7, 2016 by
The message that church conveyed—sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly—was that Lent and many other traditions of the wider church were nothing but empty ceremonialism that “real” Christians were better off avoiding.
Formations 02.07.2016: Accepting the Promise of Freedom
January 31, 2016 by
For nearly 34 years, Gregory Diatchenko knew that he would die in prison after he was found guilty of committing murder at the age of 17. Sent to serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole, he had to resign himself to the fact that he would never be free.
Crossroads: The Candle of Prophecy/Hope
November 30, 2015 by
Welcome to the first week of Advent! Advent is a time of preparation, when we wait and prepare for the Christ child. Each week you will light a new candle as we recognize the things that Christ brings to this world.
Formations 11.29.2015: Only Light
November 22, 2015 by
On November 12, a crowded marketplace in the Bourg al-Baragneh neighborhood in Beirut was bombed, leaving hundreds dead and injured in the worst attack Beirut has seen in years.
Uniform 08.02.2015: Looking for a Hero
July 26, 2015 by
I love superhero movies. Spider-Man, Superman, Thor, Captain America, and my favorite, Iron Man. And when several of these heroes come together, like in The Avengers, it’s SUPER exciting for me.
Formations 03.15.2015: Soul Food
March 8, 2015 by
Last month, Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois hosted its annual soul food dinner honoring the accomplishments of black people both living and dead. More than 150 people attended the event.
Formations 03.08.2015: “The LORD Has Anointed Me”
March 1, 2015 by
“Messiah” comes from a Hebrew word meaning, “anointed one.” We get the word “Christ” from a Greek word with the same meaning. To say that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah is therefore to say that he is the Anointed One.
Crossroads: Our Holy God – Isaiah
January 12, 2015 by
One of my favorite TV shows is “The Andy Griffith Show.” In one episode of the show, Opie Taylor, son of Andy Taylor who is the sheriff of Mayberry, gets his report card in school.
Uniform 11.30.2014: Gratitude and Hope
November 23, 2014 by
This week marks the start of a new season on the church calendar. It is Advent, the time when Christians wait with hopeful expectation for the coming of Christ. As it so often does, this first Sunday of Advent—when we light the candle of hope on our wreaths—falls just a few days after Thanksgiving.
Formations 09.28.2014: United Kingdom Remains United
September 21, 2014 by
In a referendum earlier this month, Scotland rejected a bid by nationalists to break away from the United Kingdom. Despite their complaints about the central government in London, fifty-five percent of Scots felt it better not to become independent.
Uniform 04.27.2014: Good Things and Bad Things
April 20, 2014 by
One of my favorite television shows, Doctor Who, follows a time-traveling alien who appears at some of the most crucial moments of history and attempts to right wrongs or redirect paths. Instead of dying from injuries or old age, he regenerates into a man with a new face and personality who still remembers everything he has done.
Uniform 04.06.2014: Caring for Sacred Space
March 30, 2014 by
Like many people, I can get pretty sentimental about buildings. When an old, unused gym on my college campus was torn down to make way for green space, I was saddened that people would no longer get to see the tiny gym where the Mercer Bears played basketball for many years.
Uniform 03.09.2014: Family History
March 2, 2014 by
My grandfather is a genealogy junky. He has spent countless hours sifting through birth, marriage, and death records in the public library of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Through his research, he traced our family tree back some fifteen generations, when the Milligans were still in England.