(a Steve Orr Bible reflection)   The first thing I was taught when learning to juggle: Start with “balls” that don’t bounce.   That's how real jugglers start out. Long before they juggle complicated things—like pins or chainsaws—they must first learn the craft. They start small, with two or three balls. Preferably, those “balls” are actually small stuffed bags that don't bounce away when they—inevitably—fall to the ground.    Most people can learn to juggle three small, same-

C.S. Lewis wrote a short story called “The Man Born Blind,” which was published in 1977, by that title. It was an early draft of a version later called simply “Light,” and both versions were studied by Charlie W. Starr in his book “ Light, C.S. Lewis’s First and Final Short Story .”    In the story, the man born blind continually hears references to something called “light,” but is left wondering and confused about what it is. He has an operation that restores his eyesight an

(a Steve Orr Bible reflection)   " The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted ."   The quote is from  The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,  one of my favorite novels. I highly recommend it to anyone who has children or who loves baseball, or anyone who loves  Stand by Me  or  Shawshank Redemption  (by the same author), or who loves an excellently written suspense tale.   Or who loves God.   Early in the novel, 9-year-old Trisha becomes lost. A wrong turn

The prefix  re-  tells us that something has happened again, or that it has returned. There has been a return to an original condition. It appears in hundreds of our words, including revival, meaning something was once alive and vivid has become alive again.   When it occurs in renewal, we can guess that something has happened to make something new again and when we die that it is exactly what happens.    Nicodemus was confused when Jesus told him he had to be “born again,” t

(a Steve Orr Bible reflection)   Santa Claus is not part of Christmas—in Italy.    Instead, children look forward to the visitation of the three kings: the Magi, the Three Wise Men. Children try to keep awake to catch a glimpse of these Three Royal Visitors. They listen for the cadence of their song in the distance, the sound of camels’ hooves crushing the frozen snow, and the tinkling of silver bridles. Children send toy requests to them, and, anticipating their arrival, lea