Many Advent calendars refer to the third Sunday as Gaudete Sunday—the Sunday of joy. In many churches, congregants will light a candle and read words that remind us to lean into...

Mike hated the commercialism of Christmas. When forced to retire early, he checked out altogether. “Get me nothing,” he grouched, “until people understand what Christmas is all about.” That year, his...

Can you imagine living in the segregated South of the 1950s where African Americans were banned from public facilities; where black schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods were under resourced; where dissent was...

Though eighty years old, Mawanda held vigil each Friday at noon in front of the local police station. For years, she had endured Zimbabwe’s brutal dictatorship without protest as farmlands withered,...

Raul Torres, a retired custodian, lived on a corner lot in south central Los Angeles. When his wife of forty-five years passed away, he transformed his yard into a memorial garden....

An elderly man at my church, a widower for a dozen years, endured chronic pains from aging, a drafty downsized apartment, a dwindling social security check, and several thou- sand miles...

My wife and I were driving through the desert on our way to the Grand Canyon. We navigated the two-lane highways crisscrossing the barren expanse when, seemingly out of nowhere, a...

Wilderness: barren wasteland; scorching desert by day; bone-chilling badlands at night. Wilderness is the territory of danger and desolation. Jackals prey in the wild; marauders raid from the shadows; nothingness extends...

The word advent means “coming” or “beginning.” It represents a new start. And so, with the beginning of Advent each year, we may find ourselves thinking about how things will be...

But in those days, after that suffering. . . . ” The opening words of today’s reading speak to the whole point of Advent and Christmas. The community for which Mark...