When I was a professor, I once had a French student accuse me of Xenophobia, of giving her a bad grade simply because she was French. I was quite worried that this could explode into a serious problem, as universities want students to be happy and do not want claims like this making their way into the press. I ended up putting my mother on the phone and letting her talk to this student. The interesting part is that my mother was French. We look at the Book of James. We examine whether it was truly Jesus' kid brother who wrote it, and what it teaches us about dealing with problems, and interacting with people who are suffering.

When I was a young guy, I bought my first car with a steering column lock. It locked up on me - with a key in the ignition - as I was taking a freeway curve at 75 miles an hour. I went off a small cliff. Yes, I said a quick prayer to God. We look at Jeremiah, Isaiah, and a Psalm to learn just what we should be doing with our lives BEFORE we turn to God for help.

I once spoke with a man who had been undergoing treatment for cancer, but who was at the end of effective treatments. It was time to let go, and as he put it, welcome the Kingdom of God. But he had an adult daughter who was going through an extremely difficult time - and he wanted to be there for her. So he had decided to continue treatments so that he could live a bit longer - even though he would suffer. We look at the issue of "theology", what it is, and what it means to truly understand Scripture and what it tells us about God and our relationship to God. We see how this man's understanding of theology ended up impacting his final decision about remaining alive.

I picked citrus with migrant workers when I was a boy. They were paid partly by being given food in the field, which they insisted on sharing with me - who wasn't supposed to get any of that food. They also picked the tops of my trees, to keep me safe. We look at the Book of Lamentations, and a passage that focuses on the harsh impact on children as a result of the Babylonian invasion and slaughter. We consider just what it means to be giving, especially to children, and who are most likely to give. We also consider how my mother thanked the men who fed me.

I once visited a recently retired reverend whose wife had just left him and who was terminally ill with heart disease. We talked about Paul's thorn in his side, and how this reverend was unable to handle the huge thorn in his side. We consider the way that God created us: imperfectly, with imperfect lives. We see that humility is the product of suffering, and that it has a number of major benefits, ones that greatly outweigh the benefit of having our thorn removed.

I once got to know a young woman who was an addict and who required a series of high risk surgeries. Because someone slipped her drugs the night before one particular surgery, the outcome was horrific. We look at the Book of the Covenant in Exodus and some words of advice to a new king in Proverbs - and then we consider the issue of how our society does or does not protect vulnerable people.

My father's father was a burglar in World War I and served in the trenches for two years. He came back home very mentally ill and lived on the street in Quebec for the rest of his life. My dad's mother raised my father alone. When she was close to death, she gave me the only thing she had from her childhood, a cherished possession. In doing so, she taught me a lesson that we see in Paul's writings and in the words of Jesus.

I once ditched a boring "team building" academic meeting to hang out for a bit with a bunch of jail prisoners. One of them was a man who had been incarcerated for sleeping in the snow on someone's private property. He was planning a Bible study session with the rest of his Christian inmates. In this podcast, we look at Paul, who also proselytized while in prison - and quite successfully. We see what this means when it comes to living not for the things of this world, but for the joy of God's world.