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A few years ago, classical musicians started doing “random acts of culture,” usually in busy shopping malls.
All of a sudden, someone in the crowd would start singing or playing a violin and then others in the food court or on the escalator would join in until 10 or 20 or more voices and/or instruments would create a moment of cultural beauty while surprised shoppers stopped and listened, pulling out their cellphones to record it to share with their friends on Facebook or YouTube.

Recently, I met a woman who had moved to the area to stay with family after a painful divorce and some health problems on top of that.
She had lost everything and was starting over.
“I’m too old for this,” she said, although she didn’t divulge her age. She looked to be maybe 40, which isn’t old, but when you’ve lost everything and you’re starting over in a place you really, really, really don’t want to be but feel you have no choice and nowhere else to go, any age is too old, I suppose.

Here’s a question for you: What is God like? From your gut, how would you characterize him?
A number of years ago, Baylor University conducted a survey, asking people to choose words that described how they characterized God and his level of anger and also their perceived level of his involvement in the world.
The researchers concluded that Americans viewed God in four distinct ways:

A number of years ago I got a phone call from a reader with a request.
He said he was 90 years old and had outlived two wives, yet he wasn’t sure he knew what real love is and he hoped that I could explain it.
I don’t know if he’s still one of my readers -- I haven’t heard from him since that one time. But if he is, here’s my best answer to his question:
When I was in middle school, I loved red-haired Paul Minardi with all my 13-year-old heart. We passed notes in class and he walked me to homeroom, carrying my books.

A few weeks ago, my pastor’s sermon made me squirm in my seat.
We’ve been studying the Old Testament book of Exodus. That’s the book that talks about God rescuing the Israelites from their centuries of slavery in Egypt, all the plagues upon the Egyptians, how Moses parted the Red Sea and fed the Israelites with manna -- honey-tasting bread from heaven.
At one point, Moses meets with God on Mt. Sinai where God gives him two stone tablets with his law written on them.
God’s law is a gift to his people, my pastor said.