“The first impression of [Israel] was of the strangely small scale of everything. But before nightfall one came to realize that this is an intrinsic part- that God wants to show us nothing is great or small to Him who inhabited eternity in its dimensions of space as well as time. It is a pivot land – and pivots are apt to be small things in the eyes of those who do not understand their meaning.” – Lilias Trotter (From A Blossom in the Desert, page 203.) You’ve heard the phrase, “turn on a dime”? Well this time, I turned on a quarter.  Blame inflation. It was a while in coming. The quarter, I mean. Actually, it was twelve days ago that my son lost it. No, I take that back; he knew where it w

Call me Ishmael. I chase an elusive, white-legged, chubby toddler in an endless loop around the cluttered house. He’ll be the death of me if I can’t get him first. And even then… I was in the shower. A grubby fist poked through the shower curtain. It handed me a cough drop. I took it before the grubby fist could reconsider its offering. The little body connected to the fist ran out of the bathroom, leaving the door open wide. I sighed. I was shivered. I turned off the water and followed the grubby fist into my bedroom. Apparently it had already been through my neatly folded laundry pile on the bed. I pulled the body of the grubby fist out from under my pile of wrinkled t-shirts and plunked