Reed, you’ll never believe what happened last Wednesday…I’m walking down State Street, ‘bout six in the evening…I can’t believe it myself.  I’m crossing Figueroa and trip on the curb.  I land on this woman…Would you … Read More

First, a couple of Calvinist jokes: Q. How can you tell if you’re on a Calvinist train? A. They’re all Calvinist trains. You go only where they want you to go. Q. What do Calvinists … Read More

Eating children, if properly cooked, is a good way to alleviate poverty.  In fact, a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, … Read More

Giving money away is the barometer of Christian joy.  At least it can be.  While it is possible to give a portion of our income to the Lord’s work for the wrong reasons (to earn … Read More

Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. So said Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth century, and we might add that a … Read More

Leave it to existentialist philosophers to contradict each other and almost make the same point. It was Jean-Paul Sartre who said, Hell is other people and his contemporary Albert Camus who said, Hell is alone.  … Read More

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.  Mark Twain Do you recall the final episode in Israel’s … Read More

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, … Read More

How do things work in, around and through Santa Barbara Community Church?  Who does what?  How do decisions get made?  Who makes the coffee and who runs that sound board? The short answer to these … Read More

In his classic work The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis has his senior devil describe a young convert as a man who has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen … Read More