by jakeowensby | Nov 11, 2022 | Luke 21:5-19
“The world breaks everyone.” As an ambulance driver in the First World War, Lt. Frederic Henry had tended to bodies savaged by machine gun fire and disfigured by artillery. He had witnessed souls shaken by violence, carnage, and loss. And it seemed to him that some...
by jakeowensby | Oct 21, 2022 | Luke 18:9-14
My clerical collar, black shirt, and black suit were drawing discrete glances. I had slipped away from the church office to get some cold medicine at a nearby drug store. The checkout line turned out to be unexpectedly long. A man standing in front of me looked over...
by jakeowensby | Oct 14, 2022 | Luke 18:1-8
When we returned to the room, Meredith was sitting up in bed. Puffy—her lovingly battered stuffed rabbit—was tucked under one arm. She was sipping apple juice from a straw. A Barney video was playing on the TV. And every nurse on duty in the Pediatric Cardiac ICU...
by jakeowensby | Sep 17, 2022 | Luke 16:1-13
Friendship, says C. S. Lewis, “is born at the moment when one [person] says to another “What! You too?” You love this thing that I love? And so it was for one of my oldest friendships. In our boyhood and teen years, R- and I shared a love of Tolkien’s Lord of...
by jakeowensby | Sep 9, 2022 | Luke 15:1-10
My maternal grandparents Joseph and Marie were joined at the hip. My mother and I spent a segment of my childhood and all of my teen years under their roof. They continued to speak German to each other and to my mother. They used broken English with me. Nevertheless,...
