The dog days of summer make water seem more precious. August is Water Quality Month, a time to learn simple ways to protect our water supply. The stewardship continues on September 1, which is World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation as a whole.

Manna from heaven is what we’re all waiting for. But we keep looking up to the sky to find it, instead of in the Body of Christ, namely our sisters and brothers.

The brain is a disorderly vehicle for thinking: untidy and easily distracted. It also has the unnerving tendency to act like a sieve whenever we’re trying to remember something important, meanwhile fastening stubbornly on the disturbing incident we’d most like to forget.

We were driving from Chicago to St. Augustine Florida and were very hungry. The Golden Arches, the Colonel, and other familiar neon signs beckoned us. When we stopped for gas, we asked a couple with two toddlers where we could get an authentic, inexpensive meal.

Mark Twain wrote, “I have known many troubles in my life, most of which never happened.” I know about such troubles, too. These are the troubles looming just out in the future that occupy my mind in unguarded moments throughout the day or especially as I try to drift off to sleep.

With faith in God’s salvation, we ask for mercy.

Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.