By MIKE PATRICK William Paul Young writes in his book “Lies We Believe About God” that when his mother read his first book, “The Shack,” she put it down in anger when she read that he portrayed God the Father, Papa, as a black woman. She told her daughter that Paul was a heretic. He then goes on to share how
Read moreBy MIKE PATRICK We tend to use categories to guide us through a complicated life full of boundless diversity. For example, most children learn the difference between a parent and a nonparent, safe and unsafe, self and other. That is good. However, those walls of security may turn into prison walls, both for the one on the inside and those
Read moreBy MIKE PATRICK As a high school student, my understanding of prophecy focused on predicting or foretelling the future. Not long after that Hal Lindsey’s book, Late, Great Planet Earth became a best seller and a movie. A few years later, as a college student, I began hearing that prophecy dealt more with forth-telling or what we might call preaching.
Read moreBy MIKE PATRICK Psalms of lament typically begin with gloom and end with gladness, sorrow ends with shouting, tears turn to triumph. However, Psalm 88 is the only Psalm that ends in gloom, that ends with a word of darkness. Famous theologian Walter Bruggemann says, “Psalm 88 is an embarrassment to conventional faith.” The psalmist’s lament reeks with honest misery,
Read moreby Mike Patrick This time of year, many people are joining health clubs in order to get back in shape after the holidays. That includes senior adults. In 2016, my wife, Nancy, attended a three-day workshop at the Cooper Institute in Dallas. She and about a dozen other people from around the country earned their certificate in senior adult exercise.
Read moreBy Mike Patrick Evelyn Bailey became a well respected artist in San Antonio. Her father deserted the family for another woman and left her mother to raise the children. In addition to enduring that difficulty, Evelyn (as well as one of her sisters) contracted polio as a child. Following experimental surgeries, she had a severe limp the rest of
Read moreBy Mike Patrick Bob May, born to a Jewish family in New York in 1905, left for Chicago when the family lost all their wealth during the Great Depression. He found low-paying employment as an in-house advertising copywriter for Montgomery Ward. However, life became harder a few years later when a doctor diagnosed his wife, Evelyn, with cancer in 1937.
Read moreby Mike Patrick A middle-aged woman visited with a counselor because of her depression. Joy in life had evaporated over time. She hated her job and had difficulty getting through the day. She started her morning with energy and feeling upbeat. However, it got worse by the hour. The counselor thought that the way she lived her life at work
Read moreBy Mike Patrick Nancy and I decided to get away for a few days at Thanksgiving because of our busy schedules—her grading English papers at the university and me starting a new teaching series at the hospital. We chose simply to go with no specific plans other than to relax—read, watch movies, eat. We left Wednesday afternoon and managed the
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Spirit Of Abilene 