Newspaper columns

Salvation is a mystery that can’t be faked

2 Comments / Newspaper columns, The Standard / / , , , , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

(UCU Standard – Monday, November 17, 2014)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It’s a risky move, of course, to open up your Sunday morning message to questions. You never know who might ask what.

But this is what happened last Sunday. The minister who I listened to had a post-sermon question-and-answer session and a woman stepped forward with what they call a show-stopper.

Her voice quivering, she asked rather plainly and desperately, “So just how do you get saved?”

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Will life ever change for Uganda’s poor?

Leave a Comment / New Vision, Newspaper columns / / , , , , / 5 minutes of reading

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Some days you hardly know how to keep going, how to take even another step.

The hunger pangs gnaw that much at your stomach. But it’s your children and their lack of good food that worries you more, especially these days since they are so sick.

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The long and mysterious road to sainthood

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , , , , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, October 18, 2014)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ It’s hard to know what it means to be human some days, let alone a saint, but there are clues here and there, like in this novel, The Plague, by Albert Camus, where two atheists – one a doctor, one a journalist – have a brief conversation.

They’re in Africa fighting a devastating plague when one says to the other, “It comes down to this. What interests me is learning to become a saint.”

There’s a mystery to the whole thing, a hunger, a longing …

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Learning to be a kid again

Leave a Comment / Christian Week, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , , , , / 3 minutes of reading

KAMPALA, UGANDA✦It’s the children who in the end will be given the keys to the Kingdom.

This is what Jesus said on the matter. Be a kid again. The way up is down. If you want even half a shot at eternal life, as if it were somehow possible, go and grow young.

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Your life is much more than your career

Leave a Comment / Newspaper columns, The Standard / / , , , , , , , , / 3 minutes of reading

(The UCU Standard – Monday, September 29, 2014)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ The problem with university life is that it can bypass your heart and feed your mind directly with foolish notions about the work world, namely that some grand career will make you a personally large being.

“Hey, look at me! I have this job now. It’s who I am!”

And maybe you’ll win much of that war that’s so well-known around the world, that is the war to get ahead.

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The dangers of too many cats

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, September 27, 2014)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Back in Africa, I’m not overly worried about Ebola on the other side of the continent or even al-Shabab terror cells like the one just busted in a slum here in Uganda’s capital – 19 Somalian suspects were arrested.

I’m worried more about my underwear. They could soon all be taken by my daughter and her cats.

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We’re told to love our neighbours

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, August 23, 2014)

HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ He needs a home with others. Assisted living. There are options in Hamilton. He needs one before he’s destroyed by his uncertainty and fear, his black as midnight darkness.

He’s not a star, not a celebrity, not, say, Robin Williams, whose suicide just shook us so deeply. He’s simply your neighbour. This is his story.

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Universities should help pregnant students

Leave a Comment / New Vision, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , , , , / 5 minutes of reading

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ You’ve worked hard for this your whole life, this, your university career, your education and future, your dreams of a better life. Then it happened. You made a mistake. Now you’re pregnant. You’re pregnant while at a religious university.

You know what happens next. You get thrown out. Everything will be gone. Your hard-earned tuition and your honour and your hope for tomorrow too, all lost. So you got that abortion.

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