My father served in the Pacific in World War II as a Marine and the leader of a combat unit. We look at three stories of resurrection, of rising from spiritual death: the return of the exiles from Babylon, the rise of Christ after death, and the growth of the Christian church in very recent times. We also look at how my sister serving as a foreign exchange student healed my father and allowed him to rise again.

We look at the traditional view of Holy Week, from the triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, to the gruesome crucifixion, to the glorious resurrection. We note that low point between the ride into the Holy City and the rise of Jesus from death. But we consider a somewhat different view - that the crucifixion does not break the joy from Palm Sunday to Easter. We look at Jesus' last words on the cross and how they have been traditionally very misinterpreted. We see that things are different than we have viewed them in the past. We also look at an encounter I had as a kid with a family riding donkeys, and how we can see this as a lesson about why Jesus chose to ride a seemingly humble, if not ridiculous, animal into the city of his forefathers.

I once spoke with a highly educated physicist who was a psychiatric patient. We call her Annie. She talked to me about the Newtonian misconception of gravity as a force, when it really has more to do with the bending of spacetime. We consider the biblical story of the invasion of Canaan, and the evidence to counter and to defend the validity of this story. We then get back to the bending of spacetime - and we see that there is something very deep we can learn about advancing our faith.