Religion and Life
People ask me, "What are you doing in Denver?" I tell them I'm helping Karen Taylor and Tammy Ross cook 700 meals for our youth group from Bartlesville, with very little refrigerator space which means I'm on a first name basis with grocery clerks on Colorado avenue. In the midst of cooking, washing dishes, and…
Karen and I were driving through Wisconsin farmland a couple of years ago, and I was overcome by pastoral splendor although it may have been too many cheese curds. I began singing America the Beautiful, like Ray Charles, because after all, my middle name is Ray. I’ve always loved that song. It’s not ambivalent, it resolves,…
“I was born at home and my family gave the money we saved by not going to the hospital to the church building fund.” Madison Holroyd
Word. Word is a strange word...the longer you stare at it, the odder it becomes. Stranger still is the moment you hear correct words in a song after many years of singing the wrong words. Karen was making a Margherita pizza last night while singing Midnight Confession, a song by The Grass Roots from…
Last summer my friend Bob and I were in Denver at a fly fishing outfitter admiring the gear and clothing. It was in that moment of idealistic longing that we decided to go trout fishing. Neither of us fish much. But the river called to us like the sirens singing to Delmar and Pete in…
"Can you see well enough to read the Bible?" She said, "No, and I can't really make out your face, but I can see that your shirt is checkered." I lied and told her I was handsome and she replied graciously, "I can tell by your voice."
A good friend of mine, Steve Osborn, once referred to me as his summertime friend. He attended Oklahoma University and I attended Harding University. As college undergraduates, we mostly saw each other in the summer. We were connected by our faith, growing up together on the basketball court, at the church house, and graduating from…
Mushroom consomme' with asparagus dumpling, watermelon radish, baby greens and chili oil...Spring pea & Carrot Salad with shaved rainbow carrot, pickled cucumber, hijiki seaweed, Parmesan, nori cashews & orange-mustard vinaigrette...Alaskan Day Boat Halibut with Chanterelle mushroom, fava beans, cherry tomatoes, quinoa tabbouleh, cinnamon, ginger beer gastrique & smoked fumet...Espresso alongside dessert of whipped chocolate ganache,…
"Word" is the shortened form of the phrase: "my word is my bond" which originated with prison inmates and also by my Grandma, who avoided blasphemy by saying,"oh my word", or "oh my goodness", which sounds similar to God. Word is equated to God from John Chapter 1. It begins like this. "In the beginning was the Word,…
Once she realized who Jesus was she shared what she had seen because she had seen beauty. What was this beauty?
