Test

What Are We Really?

The following poem, “Zebra Question” by Shel Silverstein, uses humor to raise the age-old question concerning how we understand human nature. I asked the zebra, Are you black with white stripes? Or white with black stripes? And the zebra asked me, Are you good with...

Talk With Me

It’s hard to absorb the steady stream of negative local, regional, national, and international news and not feel powerless in a world of seemingly endless despair, corruption, violence, and war. We have to work overtime to resist the twin temptations of hopeless...

The Keys of Leadership

When I was a sophomore in college, I got cut from the baseball team. The door that I wanted so desperately to stay wide open, allowing me to walk through to become a professional baseball player, was closed abruptly. I didn’t know what to do or even who I was....

Looking Out for Mom’s Needs

In a survey conducted by Mother’s of Preschoolers, a thousand moms were asked what they need the most. Some of their needs included: Adult conversation. To know that I’m normal. Time off. To know that I am a good mother. Time with my husband. Time with God. A...

Happy 50th Anniversary Conejo!

Every local congregation has an origin story and every origin story involves people with a dream. According to one document by early Conejo Church member Morris Womack, there were church leaders at the Camarillo Church of Christ as early as the summer of 1968 who had...

Changing the World

Every year at graduation time, valedictory speakers trot out time-honored platitudes about “making a difference,” “changing the world,” and “following your dreams.” The same is true during election years as candidates make promises and proposals for a better future...

Re-enchanting the Disenchanted

Allow me to paint in broad brushstrokes. The world in which we live, the modern West, is a “disenchanted” world in which many people have come to view the world in a mechanized way. Science is seen by many as being able to explain any and all phenomena, from...

Faith and Science: Finding a Third Way

“So vast, without any question, is the Divine Handiwork of the Almighty Creator!” – Copernicus, De Revolutionibus, 1543 Since the period of the Enlightenment, when philosophers advocated for reason as the primary authority for knowing any truth, many have pitted...

Fast-Forward Headlines

A few years ago, I was reading the news on a Tuesday morning and noted that two firefighters had died fighting blazes driven by Santa Ana winds in Riverside County. I paused briefly, thinking how regularly such tragedies occur and about loved ones left in the wake. My...

Falling Down

“Don’t worry about failure; worry about the things you miss when you don’t even try.” Teddy Roosevelt At 9 years of age, his mother died. At 22, he failed in business; the next year he lost in a bid for the state legislature and failed to get into law school. At age...