The 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard called fear "The psychological condition that precedes sin." Fear has incredible power to cause people to act irrationally. The person who generated today's prayer has one of the best one-liners...
Daily Prayers
Lord of Light Prayer
During the month of December, sunset in Northern Virginia occurs before 5PM. The school bus drops off grade school kids in our neighborhood in the twilight hour. Those afflicted with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) suffer the adverse effects of...
Johann Olearius
One contribution of the Reformation was the recovery of congregational singing. During the Middle Ages, worshipers didn't typically sing hymns in worship. Music was sung exclusively by choirs of professional singers. Since the musical arrangements...
Johann Wichern
Today's story is about the man who "invented" the Advent Wreath. Johann Wichern (1801-1882) was born into an impoverished family outside Hamburg, Germany and devoted his life to missionary work among the poor. He started a home in Hamburg for...
Lucy Larcom
She was a "mill girl," one of the many girls who worked in the textile factories of Lowell, MA in the early 19th century. Lucy Larcom (1824-1893) was born into a family of ten children. Her dad, a retired sea captain, taught his children in the way...
Nerses
I knew nothing about Armenia before I met Eli, who was Armenian to the core. He had served as Chief Chaplain for the Marine Corps before he joined our pastoral staff. I still recall something he said in a sermon, "You never know who you are...
Thomas More
Lawyers have been the punchline of jokes since Shakespeare. According to one Stanford law professor, 60% of Americans regard lawyers as greedy while only 20% regard them as honest and compassionate. Thomas More (1475-1535) was a reputable lawyer in...
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was an astronomer who believed God created order in the universe to understand and put to good use. So, what's the problem? The leading scholars of his day were convinced the earth was the center of the solar system....
James Montgomery
Recently in Sunday worship, we sang four verses of the hymn "O, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing." When Charles Wesley originally wrote the hymn in 1739, it contained 18 verses! Many hymns we know, and love have more verses than what we customarily...
Julian of Norwich
T.S. Elliott closes his "Little Gidding" poem with the words, "All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well," a quote from Julian of Norwich (1343-1413). On the surface, her words sound naive and simplistic, yet she lived during a time...
Lewis Carroll
Some people whose prayers I research are lost to history. There's not much written about their past and anecdotal stories about them are hard to find. Such is not the case with Lewis Carroll, the pen name for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson...
Eleanor Farjeon
Percy Dearmer was looking for a hymn to express thanksgiving for each new day for inclusion in his new 1931 hymnbook Songs of Praise. He approached Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965), a well-known English poet and writer of children's stories for...
Jane Crewdson
I know only the barest outline of Jane Crewdson's life (1808-1863). She was a British poet married to a cotton manufacturer named Thomas. She was confined to bed during a lengthy, undisclosed illness, during which time she wrote poems. She composed...
William Brewster
I'll get to William Brewster's prayer at Thanksgiving in a moment, but first I digress. William and Mary Brewster had five children, two of whom traveled with them as young boys on the Mayflower. Their names were Love and Wrestling. Love, I can...
Martin Rinkart
Martin Rinkart (1586-1649) came to pastor St. Anne's Church in Eilenberg, Saxony (modern Germany) in 1618, coinciding with the start of the Thirty Years War. As a walled city, Eilenberg became a place of refuge for neighboring people. A deadly...
Anna Warner
They were known as "Miss Warner's boys." A group of West Point Cadets would row their boat across the Hudson River each Sunday afternoon to Constitution Island where Susan and Anna Warner (1824-1915) lived. Each cadet came with a Bible verse to...
Henry Manning
Working the docks at the port of London was a dangerous job with no benefits and lousy pay. But if you are poor and have no other options, you take what you can get. Every day at the docks, a surging crowd of desperate men showed up, scrambling to...
John Woolman
C. S. Lewis wrote, "Human beings, all over the earth, have the curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it." It's one of the best descriptions of the conscience I've ever read. John Woolman (1720-1772)...
King Alfred
Winston Churchill called him "the greatest Englishman ever." He was one of only two English kings awarded the designation "The Great" for extraordinary leadership. He's remembered as the monarch who saved England from Viking invasion, united Saxony...
Ignatius of Antioch
The following quote is worthy of serious reflection, "It is not that I want merely to be called a Christian, but to actually be one." Ignatius of Antioch (35-110) wrote these words in a letter addressed to fellow believers on the way to his...
Thomas Chisholm
Lamentations is not likely your favorite book in the Bible. Little wonder! It's a series of five laments over the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by Babylonian invaders in 586 BC. In the midst of these laments, likely composed by the...
Sarah Woolsey
Letting go is hard yet hanging on can be harder still. Letting go of the past hurts and disappointments are difficult but holding onto them can make matters worse. C. S. Lewis wrote, "Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey...
E. B. Pusey
Contentment doesn't come naturally. It's a learned behavior. Paul writes in Philippians. "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation" (Philippians 4.12). If Paul can learn the secret of contentment, so can we. Edward...
Henry Greenleaf Whittier
No other hymn in the Christian repertoire originates from a poem about taking drugs. "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" was derived from a longer poem by Henry Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), a Quaker active in the abolitionist cause. Whittier's...
Alcuin
One of the most famous swords in history is on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. It's called the Sword of Joyeuse and is reported to have belonged to Charlemagne. The irony is not lost on me that Joyeuse in French means joyful, not a word I...
Desmond Doss
Desmond Thomas Doss (1919-2006) worked in the Navy shipyards of Newport News, VA at the outset of WWII. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the army as a noncombatant, consistent with his Seventh-Day Adventist Church beliefs. At basic...
Peter Muhlenberg
There's a monument on Connecticut Avenue in DC identifying John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg (1746-1807) as "The fighting parson of the American Revolution." The British disparagingly called patriotic pastors like Muhlenberg "the Black Robe Regiment."...
Jan Hus
The parents of Zbynek Zajic bought him the job of the Archbishop of Bohemia. You read that right. They paid big money so their son could have a coveted church job. Zbynek had no qualifications for the position. He was an ex-soldier with zero...
Monica
I've prayed a long time for some people, seemingly, to no avail. Yet things aren't always what they seem. Jesus told his disciples a parable to reinforce his message to pray and never give up (Luke 18.1). The story of Monica (332-387) reminds us to...
Jan van Ruysbroeck
They were called Brethren of the Free Spirit. They were free spirits, all right. Since they had achieved perfect union with God, they were no longer subject to human codes of conduct. This led to all manner of deviant behavior. They also had no use...
Flannery O’Connor
Emory University in Atlanta purchased and made public in 2014 the personal letters, private journals and literary drafts belonging to writer Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). It was enough to fill 30 boxes. One researcher said the disclosure would...