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"She hit him with a rock! He had to be given twelve stitches!" According to the angry woman standing outside our front door, I had deliberately injured her son. Her version of the story was wrong, but I was relieved to know the boy wasn't dead. That meant the police were not coming to arrest me. There was no more reason to hide...until I heard the sound of my mother's voice, the anger she punched into the two syllables of…

"Anything yet?" "Ha!--not a very good job of sneaking up on me this time, Dad. Stepping on that crusty plowed snow by the road gave you away." "I wasn't trying to sneak up on anybody. Just trying not to disturb the peace. I know you like sitting out here on the shoreline and meditating under this old white pine. But I wanted to check if you've had any flags." "One false alarm just after I got my two tip-ups set.…

In the voluminous literature of child rearing and family health, the work of psychologist James Dobson stands eminent. Dobson received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Southern California in 1967. Focus on the Family and its founder first entered the American consciousness a decade later with the radio broadcast, "Let's Get Acquainted." In form it was not unlike President Roosevelt's attempts to speak to the hearts of Americans through "Fireside Chats" in the 1930s and 40s. The radio…

I have loved the Belhar Confession for twenty-seven years. I am proud that the Reformed Church in America (RCA) has adopted the Confession as a fourth doctrinal standard. But now we have to live with it and let ourselves be formed by it. Let me give a testimony of my experience of the Belhar and then offer some observations on how the Belhar has been forming the RCA while we considered it and of how it may form us in…

At the end of spring semester, I know it's coming. It's most often an honest question from both colleagues and non-teachers alike, though sometimes the latter's fascination with "summers off" borders on an obsession. Still, in whatever form, the question still comes: "What do you have planned for the summer?" Even though I answer this question more assuredly as a college teacher than I did as a high school teacher, this year I find myself fishing for an answer that…