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From 1845 to 1849, Ireland experienced what became known as the Great Famine. A potato blight wiped out the crop most people depended on for both food and wages, absentee landlords allowed high rents to be collected for squalid living conditions, and high taxes made other available food such as bread too expensive. Some one million people...

Promise Kept at Mount Sinai Mount Rushmore in South Dakota has been called the “Shrine of Democracy.” The heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln were carved out of the mountain in 1941 and restored for the 50th anniversary in 1991. It currently welcomes nearly three million visitors per year.

Aaron’s Death on Mount Hor The English language includes many idiomatic expressions for death and dying. We might say someone “kicked the bucket” or is “pushing up daisies.” More respectful expressions include “passed on” or “departed this life.” Christians might say a fellow believer has been “promoted to glory.” And it’s certainly accurate...

Lord of Both Mountains and Valleys Atheism and agnosticism are higher than ever among American young people, according to research done by the Barna Group. Among those of Generation Z (ages 13 to 18), 21 percent declare themselves to be atheists or agnostics, as compared to 15 percent for Millennials, 13 percent for Generation X, and 9 percent...

Meeting God in the Valley of Dry Bones Seventeenth-century Puritan minister William Bridge prayed, “Ah Lord, my prayers are dead, my affections dead and my heart is dead; but you are a living God and I bear myself upon you.” Our God is a God of life and hope, as we see in today’s reading. The topic of this vision is the end of the exile and...

A Sacrifice on Mount Moriah Mount Fuji—or “Fuji-san” in Japanese—is the highest mountain in Japan at 12,380 feet. A dormant volcano, it is considered a treasured symbol of the nation. More than 200,000 tourists climb it every summer. The name Fuji originally meant “fire mountain” but also carries a traditional meaning of “immortality” or...

Mount Ebal or Mount Gerizim? The site of Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim had deep roots in Israelite history. When God first called him out of Ur, Abraham built an altar there, at “the great tree of Moreh at Shechem” (Gen. 12:6). The city of Shechem was still there, more or less in between the two mountains, when Joshua and the people returned...

Judgment in the Valley of Ben Hinnom The worship of Molek (also spelled Molech) was a particularly notorious Ancient Near Eastern religion. Known in Scripture as the “detestable god of the Ammonites” (1 Kings 11:5, 17), Molek demanded child-sacrifice. This practice was strictly forbidden by the Mosaic Law, on pain of death. A person who did...

“Where Does My Help Come From?” Frida was a very special member of the Mexican Navy. An eight-year-old Labrador (now retired), she was a rescue dog who searched for survivors under rubble and debris after earthquakes. Wearing goggles and special booties, she helped locate and save twelve people after an 8.1-magnitude quake in Oaxaca one year...

Dark Valleys and the Good Shepherd Logan Runnalls introduces Into the Valley: Spiritual Reflections on Depression with these words: “The following is a series of explorations into my depression and my healing. It is part confession and part question. This is my heart as I know it. There are no new secrets to success revealed in this book.