Kin
Culture, identity, relationships, belonging. The Bible is a family story before it is anything else. These reflections follow the news of how people hold together and come apart, and what Scripture says about both.
The kid who used to fight staged one to thank his principal
Bobby Davis ran to break up a cafeteria fight and grabbed the boy with the history. That boy had planned the whole thing as a thank-you.
Kid Rock showed up when Eminem was nobody, and Eminem remembered
Eminem backed Harris. Kid Rock just dined with Trump. Some fans balked when the two recorded together, and that pushback may show what this friendship is for.
Green Bay clapped for Mike Ditka, who beat them fifteen times
Lambeau went quiet for the Bears coach who beat the Packers 15 times, then applauded. Off the field, Ditka and a Packers great looked after broken players together.
Jay-Z's father walked out, and his mother set up the meeting twice
Adnis Reeves left when his son was 11. Decades later the woman he left kept arranging the talk, even after he stood them up.
The church waited 40 minutes for a pastor who can't come home
Barred from returning after visiting his sick mother, a Wisconsin pastor leads his church from Guatemala by screen. His people miss his hugs, and they keep standing.
Americans stopped having people over. Jesus had already rewritten the guest list.
The open door is closing for ordinary reasons: time, effort, screens. Jesus once told a host what was wrong with his guest list: everyone on it could pay him back.
What we owe the people who raised us
A viral column says caring for aging parents runs on reciprocity, not duty. The oldest commandment about family asks a debt you can never repay.
Eighty trucks came to harvest what a sick farmer couldn't
Stage 4 cancer kept Bill Cotton out of his own beet field this fall. One Wednesday, his whole town drove in and brought the harvest home.
A foster village built to keep siblings together
When children are taken from home, siblings are usually split across separate placements. In Palmdale, a cluster of houses was built so they no longer have to be.
He answers Klan hatred with dinner, and the robes come off
For forty years a Black musician has sat down to eat with men who hate him. More than two hundred have handed him their Klan robes.
Brazil remembers a nation born in a single afternoon
On September 7, 1822, a prince shouted independence beside a creek near São Paulo. Brazil still dates the life of an entire country to that single afternoon.
Coltrane got clean in this rowhouse. His sons are opening it.
In 1957 he shut a bedroom door, quit heroin cold, and promised God music that would make people happy. His sons are unlocking that room for a whole neighborhood.
Don't cry. Eat. The Bronx answer to an ancient brush-off
A Bronx pizza man fed the woman eating from his trash, then posted an invitation to the hungry. An old letter asks what kind words are worth without lunch.
A Jewish scholar was elected to lead Catholic Bible scholars
Amy-Jill Levine spent decades teaching Christians to read the New Testament without slandering Jews. Catholic scholars just elected her to lead them. The attacks came fast.
Four hundred thousand children and the difference between proof and a proverb
A twenty-year study says public pre-K left a lasting mark on 400,000 children. The headlines said it proves pre-K works. Scripture has a genre for what usually holds.
Sae Joon Park bled for the country that told him to leave
Shot defending the U.S. in Panama, then convicted as his war trauma went untreated and made to leave the only country he knew. A governor's pardon cracks the door.
What you owe the place that made you
A third straight record year of Israelis leaving home. The oldest story about that road refuses to call it either cowardice or conscience.
The phone bans gave schools back the lunch table
Thirty-nine states now keep phones out of class. The grades barely moved. What moved was the thing an apostle said ink could never finish.
Michigan takes its freshmen off the scoreboard for a semester
Eighteen-year-olds pulled from every world they knew, dropped into an institution built to rank them. Michigan decided the ranking could wait a semester.
The parents who agree on nothing agree about the screens
Progressive and traditional parents who agree on almost nothing are converging on the same unease about classroom screens, and the same request: fewer of them.
The Horseman Who Broke the Family Habit of Breaking Horses
As a boy, Monty Roberts watched his father bloody horses into obedience. He spent his life proving the same animals would rather come to him freely.
A Buried Synagogue Is Uncovered and Its Remnant Cannot Agree
In Vilnius the floor of a synagogue the Nazis and Soviets destroyed lies open again. The few Jews left agree it must be saved and disagree on what to build on it.
A Rookie Paid a Stranger's Groceries and Pleaded to Keep the Blessing
A rookie with a bag of shrimp covered a stranger's whole grocery bill, then asked her not to take the blessing away from him.
Seattle Gave Jimothy the Crooked Raccoon a City Proclamation
A hunchbacked raccoon earned a councilmember's proclamation for being lovable precisely because he's imperfect. Scripture says the body owes its weakest parts the greater honor.
The Pop-Up Choir Stumbling Into Something Like Worship
Strangers pay to sing together for an afternoon and call it healing. Paul described the ache they're naming, and aimed it at someone in particular.
The Loneliest People in Morocco Live in the Fullest Houses
The rooms stay full of relatives, and the loneliness deepens anyway. What the unseen want turns out to be small: one person who notices they are there at all.
A Four-Year-Old Waved Until a Neighbor Finally Crossed the Road
A lonely preschooler waved until a dozen adults crossed the street. Scripture's claim is stranger: the neighbor who is near outranks the brother far away.
Two Comas, One Sentence Only They Can Say
On July 10 the Washington Post told of two teens who woke from comas in the same hospital and marry this fall. Scripture names why it lands.
The World Cup's Smallest Nation Came Home to an Ocean of Blue
Cape Verde lost to Argentina and half a million people met their team like conquerors. Zechariah asked who despises the day of small things.
Five Years After a Nervous Post, Strangers Grew Her a Harvest
She asked forty neighbors to let her farm their yards. Half a decade later, the anniversary is circulating, and the gates are still open.