Casey wasn't the most popular dog in her owner Carol Baird's neighborhood. She had a heart of gold but a nose for trouble. So when a man rapped on Carol's door, said he lived three blocks away and then asked for her dog's name, Carol braced herself.

Nearly seventeen years ago, my friend and his wife lost their 34 year old son to cancer. A friend of the son who attended the funeral was doing mission work in the Ukraine and offered to take the son's clothing back with him to the impoverished nation

Many choose to view God as distant. Observable. Manageable. Close enough to consider. Distant enough to never impose nor interfere. From a distance, no wonder is ever too wonderful, no power too powerful, no master ever too masterful.

A remarkable book about Russian monks, published last year, reads like something from the middle of the 19th century. You feel transported back in time to the era of Russian faith that gave birth to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Yet, the non-fiction tales collected in "Everyday Saints" are entirely contemporary.

We all have secret pain. We all have brokenness. We all have wounds that do not fully heal despite all the salve we put on them. The truth is that no matter our circumstances in life, there is still heartache and pain.

Many insist that man's predatory practices are undiminished and ineradicable. But an opposing trend is becoming visible. While admitting that "the arc of the moral universe is long," Martin Luther King Jr. believed that "it bends toward justice."

Countless comedians have been branded as racist, misogynistic or homophobic, and as a result their careers have gone the way of the dinosaurs. So why is the lampoon of Muslims as terrorists acceptable?

Many of the people who define themselves as Christians often miss the mark when it comes to what the Bible teaches.

As members of the Muslim community in the U.S., we have a deep responsibility to undertake an introspective analysis and explore why U.S. Muslims engage in forms of violence.

Big topic. All encompassing. From Ra to Zeus to Moses to Jesus to Muhammad to Buddah. From Cotton Mather to Rush Limbaugh. From the Crusades to Shiites and Sunnis. Well, leave me out.

Tito's friendship showed me to give my love to everyone who deserves it before it's too late. I never had the chance to tell him just what a great human being he was.

He swung into our line of vision, swiveling his wheelchair around finally to face us in his spacious living room, his back toward a large window with a vista onto the Pacific Ocean in Maui. Ram Dass was beaming, joyous.

Sure, you can "know" God, as the inner, inexplicable and transformative personal experience. But do not ever, my friend, do not ever be so arrogant as to assume you actually "know" God, in terms of explaining God or understanding God.

The energy and ardor we see flung with feverish force at the sight of certain key words would be far more beneficial if harnessed and used to rid the world of its eternal anger and insults.

Scholarship complicates our widely accepted and most popular images of Cyrus the Great as a uniquely benevolent ruler who instituted policies of peace and tolerance such as the world had never seen before. As it turns out, the famous Cyrus Cylinder was not revolutionary.

What a joy to see Collins unleash some of the best impulses within us. He is doing what I wish more religious leaders would do: speak to our highest values, refine our spirits, help us build a better world for all of God's children.

This enraged and grieving mother Mary grabs us by the throat and demands that we listen to the story that she has been preordained to tell.