The Best Defense …

I grew up being very aware of other people’s image of me. My father, being a pastor, was a public figure in a very small town. Someone knew everything I did and often the things that the children of public figures did became the stuff of coffee shop conversation around town. (The daughter of the …

Patio Flower Garden

Brenda's flower garden on the back patio. It was particularly beautiful this year.

The Enduring Influence of Egypt on the Celts

The story (told in the previous essay) of Sts Martin, Athanasius, Patrick, and Ninian, along with a host of Coptic monks moving from the deserts of Egypt to Gaul is an interesting tale. But it raises some questions and provides the basis for further speculations. In this essay I consider one of the key questions …

From the Desert to the Emerald Isle

There is an odd connection between Celtic and Coptic (Egyptian and Ethiopian) Christianity. At least on the surface it seems odd because Ireland and Scotland are so far from Egypt. The odd turns right down weird if you listen to the British Zionists or the History Channel (which has devolved into a network devoted to …

Mea Culpa

Sometimes I mistake myself for a humorist. A good humorist can be acerbic without being small-minded. (Don't forget that before "mean" meant "hurtful" or "offensive," it meant "small-minded.") My humor too often is small-minded and thus unintentionally veers off in the direction of mean-spiritedness. Here's my own means-spiritedness measuring stick: Would I be embarrassed to meet a …