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The Unreasonable Nabal: Narcissists in the Bible
Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail: and she was a woman of good understanding, and of a beautiful countenance: but the man was churlish and evil in his doings, and he was of the house of Caleb. 1 Samuel 25: I suppose everyone has moments where they are unreasonable. I know I do. But most people come around once they get a nap, a snack, or a good talking to. But for others, being unreasonable is a tool that they use to upend other’s sense of reality. The narcissist is the inventor of the impossible choice, I think, and Nabal is a perfect example. The title of this post came…
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The Anchorage Earthquake: A Lesson in Aftershocks
The Anchorage earthquake of 2018 wasn’t my first rodeo, though it felt like it. I remember the Northridge quake decades ago while I was in college. I lived too far away to feel much except a jolt as I walked through the apartments at the University of California, Irvine. I remember the pictures, of course. Broken bridges and crumpled asphalt roads shock the eye and alarm the heart, even if one isn’t personally affected. But this one frightened me. I should say terrified. I realize now that I have never been properly terrified. The car accidents I have been in, even a severe one, started and stopped too quickly to…
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Relocating from Glory to Glory
Glory is a touchy topic for me. Ringing in my ears still are the harsh words of a woman berating the death from cancer of a woman at the school we both taught at. Where is the glory of the Lord in someone dying of cancer? she screamed at me. I don’t think she understood what glory is. If the glory of God only resides in healthy people, then we are in trouble. Perhaps a better memory I have of the word, glory, is the wife of a pastor of a church I attended twenty years ago in Big Bear, California. She and her husband had served as missionaries in…
