Category Religion
Forgotten Heroes
One of the things I enjoy about vacation is just wandering around the community I visit. No set agenda, no plans to see any particular sight or building; just soak in the sights and sounds of the city. When doing that I occasionally notice things that aren’t in the guide books that intrigue me. A […]
Hagia Sophia II – Frescoes and Mosaics
Christian art can be an inconvenient truth at times. When Constantinople fell, and the Hagia Sophia was converted from a church into a mosque in 1453, the conquerors had to decide what to do about the frescoes and mosaics. With all the publicity in recent years over the various drawings of Mohammed that have spawned […]
Hagia Sophia I
It has had multiple uses: first as a church, then converted to a mosque and now is a museum. Whatever its function, one thing is certain: the Hagia Sophia is impressive. We tend to forget that Turkey, which is today 98 per cent or so Muslim, was once the centre of the Christian church, and […]
Traffic Signs
Once again today I am going to let the picture do most of the talking. It’s been posted on my home office desk for more than a decade. The signs are at Oceanwood, a Baptist camp in Ocean Park, Maine. I first noticed them when we were walking through the camp to take one of […]
The Parable of the Two Daughters – II
We have all heard that you can’t legislate morality; government should not even try. Many social changes of the past half century, from the legalization of gambling and liberalization of drug laws to changes in how sexuality is regarded, have come from government abandoning its role in areas once thought to be proper for it. […]
The Parable of the Two Daughters – I
I came across a modern parable in my newspaper and thought you might be interested in it also. You know what a parable is, right? In the Bible you know that when he was teaching his disciples Jesus often spoke in parables, telling a story that makes a moral point. Here is a paraphrase of […]
The Good Lie
When I first heard of The Good Lie, at its Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) premiere last September, I knew it was a film I wanted to see. That was reinforced after viewing the trailer and seeing an interview with the stars that took place at TIFF. Brilliant move to make a film about […]
The Buckle Church
Anything free when you are traveling is a good thing, given that travel can be so expensive. Of course if you don’t know it is free it kind of defeats the point. That is the case of the Buckle Church. The church is part of the G Tokali Kilise (The Buckle Church) is the oldest […]
The Blue Mosque
It is one of the most visited tourist sites in Istanbul, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, commonly referred to as The Blue Mosque. Of course it was a must-see when I visited Istanbul a year ago. I have visited dozens, maybe hundreds of churches in my travels over the years but I have been in very […]
Is A New Building Necessary?
As we took a walking tour of historic downtown Bucharest our tour guide pointed out the many Orthodox churches and mentioned that they could be a traffic hazard. Romanians, she explained, are very religious, and most people are Orthodox Christians. Many people, especially the older ones and taxi drivers, tend to make the sign of […]
random thoughts from lorne 
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