January 1, 2001 The debate ends

NEW YEAR'S Day 2001 marks the end of a debate which will not surface for another hundred years: the debate about when a century begins. One side of the debate argues from arithmetic and logic: The first century of the...

---

December 1, 2000 At the heart of December

Gifts, and the giving of them, are certainly at the heart of December in our society. The weeks before Christmas and, increasingly, the days after Christmas, have an enormous impact on the economy of the world. If sales are...

---

November 1, 2000 Missed largesse

It's a gift for the first 50 customers today," said the person at the drug store checkout to me after I had made a purchase on my way to work last week. I looked at the piece of paper in my hand and what first struck me was...

---

October 1, 2000 Healing takes time

WHEN I WAS a boy, I was extremely impatient with the little afflictions of summer. With my pale complexion, I suffered from sunburn, but I would make it worse by peeling the burnt skin away too soon, thereby ensuring that...

---

September 1, 2000 Study in contrasts

MY FIRST EVER visit to the Czech Republic was an experience in contrasts. Some time was spent in Prague as a guest of various Czech churches, Protestant and Orthodox, but most was in an Orthodox monastery in a village of eastern...

---

June 1, 2000 Salt a symbol of commitment, desolation

IT WAS SPRING, and I was walking along a path between a river and a busy road. Spring was late; it had been cold and wet, but suddenly the sun was warm and strong. The grass beside the river changed from brown to...

---

May 1, 2000 Diversity offers hope

I WRITE this on the way home from a meeting of the primates of the Anglican Communion. For me, one of the high points of such meetings comes on Sunday when we worship with the local community. In 1993, we were...

---

March 1, 2000 Tales of Tutu

I WRITE THIS in the midst of a difficult and joyful task, preparing to present a longtime friend with an honorary degree. The joy is in the length of our friendship; the difficulty is in his fame. He is Desmond Tutu. The...

---

February 1, 2000 Convicted by the Word

I N THE EARLY 19th century an English Roman Catholic bishop wrote a letter full of good advice to a friend just becoming a bishop. He included the words, "Episcopus est homo litteris scribendis damnatus" (A bishop is a...

---

December 1, 1999 Meals are holy, lifegiving event

STEPHEN LEACOCK once wrote a macabre story about a futuristic Christmas dinner, a warning against the fast-food revolution that he foresaw. Before frozen food and microwaves were thought of, he envisaged Christmas dinner reduced...

---