James Pence

I wrote the following post on Jan 11, 2021–five days after the January 6th assault on the Capitol. Like many Americans, I had watched in disbelief as what was previously unthinkable happened. I wasn’t surprised. I believed that the potential for violence existed; however, I had no idea that it would involve an assault on the Capitol itself. As I reread this post, one sentence stood out: I don’t believe Mr. Trump is finished, nor are the extremists who follow him. When I wrote the post, I meant that I feared more violence was coming before Joe Biden’s inauguration. Thankfully, …

We’re less than two weeks away from the first anniversary of the January 6th insurrection. I thought it would be interesting to repost the articles I wrote during the fall of 2020 up through January of ’21 with some commentary reflecting on this past year and the aftermath of the assault on the Capitol. I’ve edited the original post for space, but the content is not affected. My reflections follow the original post. ORIGINAL POST: So, how did a nice evangelical boy who’s voted straight Republican since 1976 end up becoming an independent who will vote for Joe Biden (and …

How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? 3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. 4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted. (Habakkuk 1:2-4, NIV) When I reflect on the events of 2021 in the United States, I confess I am perplexed. If you followed my blog in the months up to the presidential election of 2020, you’ll …

As a fiction writer, I deal in what if questions. That’s how I build my stories. I start with “What if…” then fill in the blank.  Facebook’s crash the other day had me thinking “What if….”  What if the crash were catastrophic and the data irretrievable?  Here’s the deal. Back in the olden days we stayed in touch by means of phone calls, letters, Christmas cards (remember those?), stuff like that.  When e-mail came along, we thought we were in heaven. Now we could write letters and have them delivered instantly. No need to wait for a sluggish postal service. Then came …

Well, I’ve decided to take a vacation from Facebook. (Or at least I’m going to give it my best shot!)  I might make it permanent. What brought about this change of mind? It was yesterday’s crash. Strange, but the longer the day went on without Facebook, the more I found myself hoping that it wouldn’t come back–at least for a while. And the longer Facebook was down, the more I hoped it wouldn’t come back up at all. I felt free. Now in the interest of full disclosure, I did bump over to Twitter to see what people were saying …

I grew up Episcopalian, so I’m used to prayer books. And although I love The Book of Common Prayer, my favorite prayer book is a curated collection of prayers titled The Valley of Vision. I read one prayer a day from this book, and the final lines of yesterday’s prayer made a deep impression on me: “May I speak each word as if my last word,and walk each step as my final one.If my life should end today,let this be my best day.” (The Valley of Vision, “Morning Dedication,” p. 221).   I’d read those words many times before, but …

Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay Note to Self: Walk in love today.People all around you are hurting. They’re confused. They’re frightened. They’re angry. They’re frustrated. They’re in pain.When people are in pain, they lash out.You might disagree with them about everything.Walk in love.You might be tempted to respond to an online post with anger or sarcasm.Hold your tongue and walk in love anyway.You might be hurting too.Don’t pass your pain and anger on to others.Walk in love.Above all else, walk in love. Ephesians 5:1-2a “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love…” (NASB, 1995).

April 27th was the three-month anniversary of the heart attack that nearly killed me. Not that I plan to go out and have a party with cake and ice cream to celebrate, but it’s worth noting.  As I continue to reflect on things I’ve learned, I’ve come to what is not exactly an earth-shattering conclusion: Life is Short. You might be thinking, “Thank you for sharing that breaking news, Captain Obvious!” We all know that life is short. But going to bed one night and almost not waking up drives the point home in new and refreshing ways.  One is …

“So, did you see anything?” In other words, did I have a near-death experience (NDE)? That was probably the most frequent question I was asked after having a near-fatal heart attack and about fifty minutes of CPR. Indeed, that question was on my mind as well. And I did see something. Sort of. After I woke up in ICU, about a week after my cardiac event, I remembered seeing something white on a background of blue. It was fuzzy and there were no details to speak of. I puzzled over it until I was moved from ICU over to the …