It’s not always easy to explain an idiom. You quickly learn this in another culture that enjoys its own sayings. Nature and the weather, the landscape and the seasons are rich sources of those short phrases that can aptly describe a matter or situation but sound completely Greek to someone unfamiliar with the origins. (Also an idiom)…
256. Come and talk, anytime
As always, the year has started at a rapid pace. Here at the end of the first month, a routine has taken hold, and the treadmill of life is in motion. If you don’t keep up, you fall off – as simple as that. Time is ruthless. Well, maybe I shouldn’t be so negative about the passage of time. I’ll…
255. Hosanna – come and save
Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20) At the beginning of a year we cherish the expectations of new things, plans, hopes for something better, and perhaps a new course for our lives – whether it be in terms of health, fitness, Bible study, prayer,…
254. Go… ask Jesus
Forgive us for mistaking the impressive for the significant. One of the great dangers of the Christmas story is an over-familiarity with the details, which weakens its impact. We are so accustomed to the chronicle – a virgin becoming pregnant after an angel speaks to her, a man dreaming that he should proceed with the relationship,…
253. Christmas-multiplication
December has come and we are well into celebrating the four words of Advent. Four Sundays before Christmas we hear the message again and again – rightly so. We need it. We need to be washed in the water of the Word to be cleansed and ready for the Feast. We give the content to our Christmas celebrations; we make contact with others…
252. The Fountain and the Light
Older people had a way of saying something. When my grandma called me and I responded vaguely with, I’m coming now, she would say: Yes, and Christmas too! Here we are again. Christmas is indeed coming. November rushes past in a whirlwind of activities, and then December is upon us. As always, it’s our challenge to provide the true essence of…
251. Light in the tunnel…s
It is correct – the plural of tunnel. I know we often use the expression “light at the end of the tunnel” to signify hope in a situation that may seem dark now. Tunnel or tunnels – we are searching for light. A tunnel is always dark without light being brought in from outside. We read…
250. Angels around us
Fantasy is popular – always was. I grew up with stories from the imaginary and illusionary world with entirely farfetched realms of witches, fairies, kings and queens, princes and princesses, dwarves and gnomes, both good and bad. In the last volume of an encyclopedia in our home there were stories from various parts of the world –…
249. The sound of the trumpet
At the beginning of autumn in the northern hemisphere, it is time for the three fall festivals of Israel, which kick off with the Feast of Trumpets. This was a one-day festival associated with the blowing of the ram’s horn. In most translations today, the ram’s horn (shofar) is translated as a trumpet. The trumpet was…
248. Ghosts and gods
We are all rational beings who live our lives with wisdom and discernment, without succumbing to the follies of wickedness and godlessness. It is sometimes inevitable to witness a life within a family or circle of friends take a wrong turn and descend into tragedy, while feeling powerless to help. This is not necessarily due to…
Pebbles of Perpetuity 