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Marlin Vis Yad Vashem is located on a hill overlooking a beautiful valley outside Jerusalem. From East Jerusalem to Yad Vashem is a two-hour walk. It is a Sunday afternoon and it's raining. Sally and I have been to worship, and now we are on our way to visit this haunting place, Yad Vashem. At the toughest point in the walk—it's a mile and a half uphill, it's raining, and the wind is in our faces—we wonder aloud why we…

Ronald A. Wells Forty-five years ago, I arrived in Heidelberg, Germany, for military service. With my freshly minted doctorate in history and an officer's commission, I had come to be the commanding officer (some command—five people!) of the Military History Detachment at the headquarters of the U.S. Army European Command. While I was aware of the historical importance of the Palatinate in the history of the Reformation in Europe, I had not given much attention to the Heidelberg Catechism. A…

John P. Tiemstra BELIEVING IN CAPITALISM I like capitalism, I really do. I think it's a fine economic system, probably the best. It's way better than socialism or feudalism. It is much better at handling the consequences of economic change and promoting economic growth. Also, by decentralizing the decision-making process, it gives individuals more autonomy and control, more opportunity to exercise stewardship over their economic lives, and that's a good thing too. My opinion on this subject has not stopped…

Sue A. Rozeboom In one of his sermons for Advent, Bernard of Clairvaux asks a multiplicity of questions fitting for our anticipation of celebrating again the incarnation of the Son of God. He plumbs simple questions, in order that we might sink with him into the profound depths of their fitting response. Simple questions like Who is the Savior that is to come? When will he come? How will he come? Whence will he come? To whom will he come?…

Debra L. Freeberg Lutherans are not supposed to panic in public. I was trying not to. Maggie looked so good in February, I was sure she would stay in this holding pattern I'd concocted in my mind. She is so much worse. She ignores my discomfort. "This is not a mug day. Get out the good china, we're having a proper tea!" During the past two years, every two or three months or so, I'd managed to drive across state…

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013: POETRY by Julia Spicher Kasdorf That town along the tracks where trains no longer stopped had more bars than churches, but everyone kept Christmas so on January 6th, a day most of us could not name, volunteer firemen gathered at the playground to burn trees, our own and those we begged from old neighbors. A branch in each mittened hand, we'd drag them through the streets to the place where men in helmets and thick, complicated coats bent…

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013: POETRY by Tom C. Hunley God gave us stuff God stuffed us Give thanks to God Stuff turkeys to stuff us Thanks God Thanks turkeys Give turkey back to God God give us enough stuff Stuff us God God stuffs us turkeys with Godstuff Let there be stuff God said Thanks God and there was stuff was God there God was God suffered enough for us Thanks God for giving us enough forgiving us for stuff   Tom…