By JIM NICHOLS This patient room was strategically positioned near the nurses’ station. Closed circuit television cameras made the room visible to the nurses. The first time I visited the ventilated patient was surrounded by several hospital workers, so I retreated to read the patient chart. There had been a car wreck as the young man had lost control, hit

By JIM NICHOLS It was just a green postcard that appeared in the mail. It read “Official Jury Summons” and identified a time, date, and place that I was to report to help construct a jury pool for an upcoming trial. I had occasionally received such a summons but was usually dismissed after reporting because I was not needed or

By JIM NICHOLS It is reasonable that few of us live with much sense of urgency. Occasionally, we find ourselves having to make specific plans and implement them with care, but, generally, what we have as tasks today can wait until tomorrow. Even with important tasks it is our tendency to delay them or build them into some plan. This

By JIM NICHOLS In an earlier column, I mentioned my appreciation for one of my elementary school supplies, the Rub Clean Green eraser. That eraser represented a tangible indicator of God’s grace because it allowed me to remove errors with hardly a remaining sight. My clearest memory of its aid was during a spelling mistake I made, but during that

By JIM NICHOLS Whatever its mechanism for you, what was really occurring when you were baptized? That is, understanding that important spiritual things were happening, what were they? Here is a suggestion—actually, two suggestions. On one hand, when you were baptized, you were individually connected to God as a redeemed being. It was a point of salvation for you, a

By JIM NICHOLS Human beings have lives of rhythms. These come in different forms including biological and behavioral. Biological rhythms include such items as heartbeats and breathing rates, which have amazing adjustable abilities such as when we climb a flight of stairs. Many of these biological rhythms are obvious and are the topic of fascinating study to biologists. Perhaps not

By JIM NICHOLS This anecdote may step on some toes, but I will blame it on my mother. When I was growing up, she and I had a running joke or discussion about the way she sometimes read a novel. Mom was a reader. I am not sure when this realization came to me because I suspect she did not