"It's not going to do you any good to paddle harder." This piece of advice stays with me as I think about how to go forward when the coronavirus has changed so much of the world I knew.

I'm urged to pause in my paddling, and pay attention to the reality unfolding before me with its new needs and opportunities.

Tod Bolsinger, a professor and ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- The U.S. Justice Department issued a letter Tuesday warning that California could be violating religious freedoms in its plan to reopen the state after the coronavirus stay-at-home order.

The letter from the Justice Department's civil rights division to Gov. Gavin Newsom listed several objections both to the original order and ...Read more

Americans love the idea of a superhero, someone possessed of supernatural powers used for the common good.

Joe Thomas, a professor studying this phenomenon, remarked, "They explain mystery. They model behavior. They inspire. They make mistakes ... and learn from them. They are life lessons. They give hope that no matter what the odds, even one ...Read more

There is one thing about ambiguity.

Umm, no. By definition an ambiguous situation means there is more than one component. The factors differ and are not resolvable.

Take the phenomenon of light. It acts both like a particle bouncing around and like a wave flowing and bending around. Different actions at the same time, but not resolvable -- it'...Read more

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court justices sounded split Monday on whether to broadly deny civil rights protections to hundreds of thousands of teachers in religious schools, as they heard cases involving two who were fired from Catholic schools in Los Angeles.

At issue is whether the Constitution's protections for religious freedom shields ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- Traditionally, a bar mitzvah is held near a boy's 13th birthday. In Jackson Rosen's case, a short delay seemed prudent.

"He turned 13 in February," his mother, Jodi Rosen said. "I was worried about a snowstorm, so I picked an April date."

Then, after a relatively balmy winter, their plans were scrapped, instead, by the ...Read more

On the count of ONE ... picture a busy mother of three little boys -- a woman who says she's 105 pounds soaking wet. Now, on TWO ... imagine her carrying a bulky ladder towering above her. On THREE ... smile at the snapshots she's creating during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meet Krissy Benda who looks at the big picture when life seems out of focus....Read more

DETROIT -- The first week of April, the Rev. Kenneth Flowers had a slight dry cough, body aches and a bad headache. His 90-year-old mother he helped take care of had tested positive for the coronavirus a few days earlier, and so he asked his doctor whether he should get a test.

But, like many at the time, the pastor of Greater New Mount Moriah ...Read more

MIAMI -- Two months ago, Jorge Rivero thought he knew everything to know about running a funeral home.

But despite a 30-year career and a multi-generational family history in the death care sector -- his great grandfather was the first to get in the business with the 1947 inauguration of a funeral home in Havana -- Rivero said nothing could ...Read more

KIRKWOOD, Mo. -- The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, which is retrenching as it loses membership nationwide, has been named in a lawsuit alleging fraud and other claims stemming from the latest closing of an affiliated university.

HotChalk Inc., a California-based firm that helped Concordia University-Portland develop and support online degree ...Read more

A couple of decades ago, I learned a principle that has served me well ... when I don't forget to remember it. It is the simple term "mid-course corrections."

I first heard the phrase from NASA. As far as I understand it (I have had friends who really were rocket scientists, but I am not), when NASA launches a rocket, they are continually ...Read more

CAIRO -- The first day of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan is particularly significant to Egyptian Muslim Sayed Mahmoud.

Each year, he usually celebrates the start of the lunar month with a big gathering of his married daughters and their families in his Cairo house for the fast-breaking iftar meal at sunset.

But this Ramadan, the 64-year-...Read more

Ah, April! -- Presenter of tulips, spring break, newly-minted Mariners baseball and, of course, Tax Day.

(Ugh, April).

Not that I begrudge Caesar his due (Luke 20:20-26; Romans 13:1-7), but if Caesar could take some of the taxing strain out of the tax system, I would appreciate that. For instance, when reviewing an old W-4, I slogged through ...Read more

MIAMI -- Rev. Dennis Bartels is still getting used to a church with no parishioners.

The pastor's eyes wander back and forth from the empty pews to the camera lens used to stream his Sunday service at Holy Cross Lutheran Church North Miami.

"I feed off of people's reactions," Bartels says with a laugh.

Since federal and state authorities ...Read more