by S.M. Chen  |  26 April 2018  |   “There’s a place for us…”  —from “Somewhere,” song in 1957 Broadway musical “West Side Story” One of the finer achievements of the late musician (conductor and composer) Leonard Bernstein was the music he composed for “West Side Story.”  In collaboration with Stephen Sondheim, lyricist, he created for […]

by Carolyn Shultz  |  13 April 2018  |   A smooth white stone. Mystery-white like Melville’ s whale? Alabaster— Or perhaps a new-made onyx Forged in the last prolific fires That purge and permute the once clean earth To Earth again. Inscribed, John says. Ur-Hebrew? Apocalyptic Greek? I think I’d fancy Strange new shapes and lines […]

“Love is so short; forgetting is so long.” ~Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet (1904-1973), Nobel laureate (1971) in literature “… before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” ~Isaiah 65:24 I take a number of pills daily. These include a multivitamin formulation, chewable megavitamin C, vitamin D, L-lysine, and […]

by S.M. Chen  |  23 February 2018  |   I don’t know if Donald Trump reads USA TODAY. The back page of the first section of the 2/13/18 issue caught my attention. Someone named Tom Blair took out a full page ad entitled “Mr. President,” with the subheading: “In anticipation of Presidents’ Day (February 19) consider […]

by S.M. Chen   |  12 February 2018  |   Dr. Ken Lauren died not long ago of an injury sustained in Costa Rica, while he was working as a volunteer on the construction of a church.  A report was posted here at Adventist Today. I visited Peru in 2005 at the invitation of my brother, taking […]

by S.M. Chen  |  22 January 2018  |   “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” —Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Irish statesman and philosopher The story is told of an old man who walks the beach.  He is in the habit of doing this before he begins […]

by S.M. Chen  |  12 January 2018  |   Some ancients bent a knee to sun. With outstretched arms they welcomed it And turned their face to catch its light And heat that warmed them to the bone, That took away the chill within. We, too,  have shared the wonder of A rising sun in flaming […]

By S.M. Chen  |  21 December 2017  |   “The rain falls on the just  And also on the unjust fella  But mainly on the just  Because the unjust steals the just’s umbrella.”            —Heywood Broun, 20th century American journalist When, a few months ago, I wrote an essay, “Rain”, little could […]

by Sharan Bennett  |  20 December 2017  |   Christmas, 2017 enters a chaotic and gloomy world that seems unprepared to receive it. But has our world every been much different? Ellen White says of the first Christmas: “The earth was dark through misapprehension of God.” (The Desire of Ages, p.22) And “While the light of […]

By S.M. Chen “There are no accidents in my philosophy.  Every effect must have its cause.  The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future.  All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite.” –  Abraham Lincoln “Every why hath a […]