Last week when I was working on a craft project with kids at church, I offered them the choice of using white paper or card stock with a tan swirl pattern designed to look like parchment. I was guessing that in in the time of Jesus, paper hadn’t been invented yet. But...
This afternoon, as we took a windy walk, we passed a dogwood tree in full bloom and I asked my daughter if she knew the legend of the dogwood at Easter. I hope the owner of the tree doesn’t mind, because I took a flower home for Good Friday. Then I started researching...
Since I did not write the blog post I’d planned for Black History Month, I thought I’d cover February and March (Women’s History Month) with a few words about Amanda Berry Smith, who was born in rural Baltimore County in 1837. Amanda’s parents were enslaved to the...
When I started building my nativity set, we could only afford to buy a few figures and I got animals to go along with the nuclear holy family because I thought a young child would find furry four-legged creatures more interesting than men in bathrobes. Each year we...
The camel really stole the show at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in my opinion. While Mary, Joseph and the heavenly host gaze reverently at Jesus in the manger, the camel is looking in the other direction and laughing, like he’s making jokes with the visitors who walk by....
Most of my blogs deal with fun topics like interesting places to visit or obscure historical facts. And that’s why I have avoided writing this one. But the recent news stories involving Asia Bibi reminded me that I can’t always ignore the ugly realities in our world....
