Mark's Blog

"Mine is bigger than yours" is both a verbal statement and a visible sign of male virility.  The boasting begins in junior high school when locker rooms become salons for trash talk about size — of one’s ego, performance, or body.  For some, boys only enclaves were...

For three years in high school I sang with “Up with People”.  We performed in front of large and enthusiastic audiences all across the New York metropolitan area.  'Sing Out Stamford' (Connecticut) was a local cast; there were three national traveling casts that...

“We will disappoint you” was the promise made in a sermon during the life-profession ceremony of a friend of mine.  He was about to commit himself to the rhythms of life in a monastery, and dedicate his life to prayer.  The preacher, who was the senior monk and widely...

The Day of Atonement, known as Yom Kippur, is the highest holy day of the Jewish calendar.  It begins at sundown on Friday, October 11.  It was the only day of the year when the high priest entered the holy of holies at the temple in Jerusalem. Atoning sacrifices were...

Two weeks ago I left my phone and laptop chargers in my hotel room after checking out of a hotel room.  The next day I found out that I gotten the date wrong for the funeral of a close friend I had agreed to preach at.  These were mistakes of distraction and/or...

I was in the midst of an intense reverie in my living room at home.  I was sixteen years old, a junior in high school. The Tet offensive (February 1968) had just claimed the lives of hundreds of American troops in Vietnam.  At the time I supported America’s war...

We are engaged in spiritual warfare.  So claims the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a loosely organized network of extreme conservative Christian leaders and congregations, which has steadily and stealthily moved from the fringes of our culture into the mix of the...

“Take that necklace off.  It’s un-American”, was the greeting a woman gave me while working as a door-to-door salesman in Indianapolis after my sophomore year in college.  I knocked on thousands of doors that summer. I was always unannounced, and unexpected.  Many...

“I had to hold on for dear life.”  Most of us have said this at one time or another, accompanied with some degree of breathless panic or abject fear.  Many of us can recall situations when we felt that if our grip wasn’t tight enough, we were certain we would fall...