In 2014 I published a book of Christmas stories entitled Twenty-One Candles. To mark the beginning of Advent, what follows is an excerpt from my favorite story in that collection, “In the Stillness of the Night.” All you need to know is that the main character, Paul, is falling in love with a Polish woman, Agnieszka.
A man lived all alone in a beautiful castle. His fortress had sturdy walls of stone, many towers with fine turrets, a moat and drawbridge, and a parapet with a long walkway.
Here’s my attempt to resolve, in a poetic parable, that old riddle of predestination versus free will. See what you think. (By the way, alia iacta est is Latin for “the die is cast”.)
I’ve been reading Sadhu Sundar Singh, the great Indian Christian mystic and evangelist. Here is a selection from his luminous devotional writings:
On August 7 Karen and I celebrated our 39th anniversary. Those of you familiar with my book The Mystery of Marriage will know that when I first met my wife-to-be, I was seriously considering entering a monastery.
The tag line on the home page of my website reads “Purveyor of Fine Sentences.”
One of my favorite writers, Frederick Buechner, turned 95 on July 11. If you don’t know his writing, you’re missing one of the great Christian minds, hearts, and pens of our time.
Two men in the Old Testament went to Heaven without dying: Enoch and Elijah. Elijah went up in a fiery chariot, but how about Enoch? He walked into Heaven. Here is his story.
Nobody was very surprised when the Baby Party came to power. For decades the Babies had been steadily gaining inroads until finally, thanks to a series of scandals that rocked the Children’s Party (not to mention the absence of public trust in any politician over the age of five), the day arrived when the Babies easily swept the polls.