By Norris Burkes 17 April 2020 These days, I’m opening scores of emails from companies announcing their new COVID-19 policy. Grocery stores tell me they are disinfecting carts. Car rental companies proclaim their vehicles safe to rent and schools promise to operate online. They are all good polices, but the pandemic plan I prefer to
By Norris Burkes April 12 2020 Last week’s column introduced a list of seven words that I live by which all begin with the letter F. I promised to continue the list for Easter, but on this holy weekend, I want to concentrate on only one word – Forgiveness. The word may bring appropriate focus
By Norris Burkes, April 3 2020 Five years ago, I wrote a book called, “Thriving Beyond Surviving.” The book is a compilation of my columns organized by themes. These days, I’m challenged to live by my own advice. If I ever republish the book, I may consider the titillating title, “Seven F-Words I Live By,”
Reader note: I wrote this on Tuesday and on Wednesday Becky and Sara caught a last minute flight. They are home! By Norris Burkes 27 March I returned home from Honduras last week with the nagging suspicion I was missing something. Turns out I was. And I still am – my wife, Becky. As you may
By Norris Burkes 20 March 2020 Having just returned from a 10-day trip to Honduras, I hopped in my car to search for the budding prize of this COVID-19 pandemic – a package of 48 Double Roll Ultra Plush Bath Tissue. The shelves were bare in four different stores, so I stopped at a chic
By Norris Burkes March 13 2020 Who Made You Stop Going to Church? Are you among the few who are planning to give church another try during the Lenten season? There are many reasons you might have taken a sabbatical from church. Perhaps you took offense in something the church did. Or maybe you were
By Norris Burkes March 6 2020 “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a 25-year-old seminary student assigned to preach a series of messages in a Phoenix church. The pastor of the church fancied himself a mentor to ministerial students, so he paused from his busy schedule to offer his
By Norris Burkes, Feb 28 2020 It was an icy morning this week when I trudged the uphill sidewalk that skirts the University of Nevada, Reno campus. Behind me, I heard the huffing of a fellow student approaching on his bicycle and moved to my right to yield for faster traffic. However, I unwittingly detoured
By Norris Burkes Feb 21, 2020 Marvin Zindler was a Houston news broadcaster in the 80s and 90s whom viewers loved to hate, or maybe more accurately, “hated to love.” He was a consumer champion of Houston’s poor. He was famous for concluding his commentary with a grating, ear-splitting, moniker – IT’S HELL TO BE
By Norris Burkes Feb 14 2020 “Mission First” was the Air Force mantra during my beginning years of military service. So it seemed fitting that during my first Valentine’s Day on active duty in 1995, our chapel staff was tasked with an essential morale mission – Operation Cookie Craze. The plan called for our chapel
BY NORRIS BURKES Feb 7 2020 As a hospice chaplain, I’ve had more than one adult caregiver attempt to enlist my help in keeping their dying parent out of hell. In my best compassionate voice, I often tell them it is not a chaplain’s role to persuade the dying that they are off track. I’m
By Norris Burkes Jan 31, 2029 If you watched the presidential impeachment trial last week, it may have seemed as if you’d tuned in to a virtual Tower of Babel with multiple dialects of political-ese. Frankly, I don’t understand polispeak, but when the news cycle was abruptly interrupted with the crash of Kobe Bryant’s helicopter, everyone
