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Silence and Spiritual Walk: The Silence of Empathy Visiting people in the hospital and sitting by sickbeds is very often a ministry of listening and silence. What we might want to say to comfort and encourage them is very often the wrong thing or mere platitudes—nothing truly helpful, and sometimes things that are actually harmful. But to...

Silence and Spiritual Walk: The Quiet Strength of Faith In To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey, Parker J. Palmer wrote of his efforts to establish a discipline of silence in his classrooms: “Eventually my students feel a sense of community in the silence that is deeper than what they feel when the words are flowing fast...

Silence and the Gospel: Zechariah’s Gift of Silence In Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre observed: “Silence is hard to come by. . . . We surround ourselves with ubiquitous means of filling or simply obliterating it. . . . But if we are to care for the work that words do, we must be willing to open up silences...

Silence and the Gospel: Jesus’ Silence of Victory Eighteen years ago, archaeologists uncovered the site of one of the most famous events in the New Testament—the trial of Jesus. They were preparing to expand the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem by getting rid of an abandoned building next door. But when they started digging, they found...

In 1884, William Le Baron Jenney designed the first skyscraper to be built in Chicago. The Home Insurance Building was completed a year later and towered over the city—though it was only ten stories and 138 feet tall! If Jenney could see Chicago today, he would see a number of new skyscrapers being built. Tall cranes dot the skyline, and holes...

The phrase “between a rock and a hard place” describes the desperation we feel when caught between two bad options. When money is tight, do we forego food or medicine? When the boss asks us to be unethical at work, do we refuse and lose our job or compromise our principles? How do we have hope when it appears there are no right answers?

Anguish can come from being under oppression; perhaps creativity has been stifled or guilt from past mistakes and failures will not let someone have rest. Others experience matters of injustice that continually drain mental, emotional, and financial resources. People with these experiences long for relief that will give way to joy, that will...

In recent decades a number of groups have focused efforts on digging and maintaining wells for access to fresh water throughout the developing world. One group in Burkina Faso, in West Africa, says that a single well that is 50 meters deep can provide clean water for 2,000 people. The ability to drink, wash, and cook with clean water is a...

Some of the most famous war stories made for the big screen depict the gruesomeness of humankind’s conflict. Images of gore, cruelties, and destruction; the sound of bombs and screams of pain; the reenactment of maimed bodies and loss of life—all now made even more vivid by the use of CGI technology. But even worse than the devastation in...

A local train service in Chicago was disrupted when a man left a suicide note in a backpack on the station platform—and then jumped into the path of an oncoming train. Even without witnessing the accident or knowing the victim, we feel pain and sorrow for the tragic choices made by such troubled souls. If only they could have found someone...