Ben, Favored Son

Kathy makes a friend.
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Studying The Canon

Pilgrim Andy Guilford's shirt-pocket wisdom.
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Next Stop, Tel Aviv

Just 11 hours to go!
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Two Daughters, Two Phone Calls

During our pilgrim band's layover in Philadelphia, Monte and Robin Nelson phone home.
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Mt. Zion Bound

Chris Nichols, who just got his driver's license, and his mother, Mary, are among 20 St. John's pilgrims at LAX, about to board a flight to Jerusalem. For more details, see Psalm 87!
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Full Field Theory Of Watergate

This explains everything. My Facebook friend Joshua Harrell says Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" is exactly the same length as the famous missing tape segment.

37 Is Still A Lucky Number For Historians

Plenty of news this morning from Nixon historians, present and perhaps future. An amateur scholar working at the National Archives hopes to solve the enduring mystery of the 18.5-minute gap in a 1972 White House recording by trying to figure out what's on a missing page of chief of staff Bob Haldeman's notes from the same meeting. While it's hard to imagine that nobody figured out before now that there was a page missing, we shall see. Meanwhile, back in Yorba Linda, we meet some of the the Nixon Library's 20 summer interns.

Hat tip to Jack Nesbitt

"Greater Than Knowledge": Sermon for 8 Pentecost

When my wife and I offered seats to another couple in an urgent care waiting room in San Diego last week, even as the man moved to accept, he said, "Whatever you want to do," which is a common primal male response. He didn't want to owe us a favor, so he acted like he was doing us one. I've acted the same way whenever I've assumed that there wasn't enough grace to go around. Scarcity thinking afflicts all our relationships and also lies at the root of mass tragedies such as genocide as well as the killing of Jesus Christ. Through the mystery of the feeding of the 5,000 by the Sea of Galilee (which we St. John's pilgrims will visit next week), Jesus offers the radical alternative of abundance. The trick is that nobody -- neither church, government, nor charities -- can be abundant for us. We have to begin by loving God and our neighbor all by ourselves. My Sunday sermon is here.