I love words. I am not a professional wordsmith but the study of words has always drawn me. I try to learn and use new words every day. I thus subscribe to several online sites that introduce me to words daily.

Recently, on the site “The Word of a Day,” a word resonated with my vision of the future. The word is “seedtime.” The obvious meaning of the word is, well, obvious. Seedtime is a time for “planting seeds, or the proper season for sowing.” But the less obvious meaning is what struck me about this word. This second, and newer, meaning reveals the development of the word in modern English. (One of the things that makes English so unique is how words continue to develop through both popular and technical usage.)

Seedtime remains a noun in all forms. But it has now taken on a second meaning. Seedtime is “the time when a cultural or political movement is beginning to develop.” Simply put, “it is a time for new development.” This meaning captured my mind. It has danced about in my thoughts in recent days. Why?

I conceive […]

Nothing seems to be more ruinous of personal religion these days than the raw, partisan politics that greet us day-by-day. Most of us have opinions. All of us have been impacted, for better and (often) for worse, by the current political climate. Whether you like our current president, or dislike him, it is hard to ignore what is going on daily in the news cycle. And it is difficult to not form an opinion unless you choose to ignore the larger world and the constant tweets and debates that fill it.

It is imperative that people of faith begin with a realization that the partisan opinions of various political combatants are not all they’ve been made out to be. Politics cannot alter the course of your life, at least in most instances.

The famous Samuel Johnson rightly observed: “Of all the things that human hearts endure, how few are those that kings can cause and cure.” Insert the word “presidents” or “congressional members” into the sentence and it applies well to our current moment in history. The rise and fall of presidents will not (generally) alter your life […]