Abby McCloskey, The Dallas Morning News, December 25, 2022

“This is not the Advent article I planned to write. I planned to write about the late New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado’s book, Destroyer of the Gods, which looks at the practices of the early church and the distinctiveness that moved Christianity from a backwater religion to one that defined empires. From restrictive social ethics to a remarkable diversity of women and men, enslaved and free worshipping alongside each other. There’s so much to say. But I’ll have to save that article for another time. Or do yourself a favor and stuff Hurtado’s book in your stocking; it’s a good one.

This is not even the Advent article I want to write, for reasons I’ll explain. But sometimes pieces reveal themselves and you go with it, as the man behind the garbage dumpster so unexpectedly appeared to me. It was a rainy, warm December morning. I was leaving a coffee shop in East Dallas when I saw him. There is a big dumpster behind the coffee shop where my car was parked. It was overflowing with trash bags. As I drove past, there was rustling in the bags, which I soon realized was a person, a shopping cart next to him, pulling open and digging through the trash. I nosed out of the parking lot and felt that tug. You know the tug. I almost always ignore it.”