The Gospel According to Luke gives us snapshots of the backdrop to THE story and it goes something like this,” About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire.” Ah, yes, politics, world leaders, and the empire! So, in a way some things haven’t changed. What the rich and powerful want they tend to get. And in case you missed the memo, we are the ones living in the empire! Well Mary and Joseph made it to Bethlehem of Judah to fulfill their civ

Remember the Bible story about the miraculous multiplying loaves and fishes? (See Mark 6:32-44) How at the end of the story it is said there were twelve baskets of leftovers from the feast? As a youngster I sometimes wondered about those leftovers. Wondered who brought the baskets and how the leftovers were divided and who got to take them home. Wondered whether there were fish leftovers too, and how they were transported--whether the food was wrapped in cloth and put into p

I told myself that I should limit the number of times I use my Celtic Way blogs to publicly process my faith identification journey, but that’s a difficult commitment to make this time of year. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, though my wife has successfully lobbied for Halloween’s popularity, currently coming in at #2. In so many ways I long for the Christmas of my childhood, not because we got lots of presents, which wasn’t always the case, but because of some

By noon, we were already cracking jokes about weathermen who always get it wrong. As we looked up at the sky, the foot of snow they were predicting seemed impossible. And then, like God heard our jokes, the snow began to fall. The flakes were big and fluffy— about the size of a dime, we guessed. Within the hour, we’d quickly finished up our errands and hurried home. We snuggled under a blanket with hot chocolate and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. We were starting to think th