Recently I received the ultimate backhanded compliment, from a former colleague I came to know in my first church ministry job. Back then I was a 25-year-old seminary graduate plotting revival everywhere I went. Now I am a 34-year-old pastor asking her for a recommendation for a hospice chaplaincy. She expressed surprise at my interest in the job. I explained that the chaplaincy would allow me to grow as a listener and to be with people in painful but potentially sacred moments. She said, "You certainly are different from what I remember."

It was meant as a kindness. Yet it felt like receiving the "Most Improved Player" trophy, which I may or may not have won on my first-grade basketball team. The subtext of that trophy is: "You're stillEnlarge Image Copyright Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority

What would have graced the cover of Vogue in ancient Israel?

An extensive collection of fabrics uncovered in the country's southern desert copper mines offers a tangible glimpse. The textiles, excavated by a team from Tel Aviv University, mark the first discovery of materials from the era of Kings David and Solomon some 3,000 years ago, according to Israel's Foreign Ministry.

"No textiles have ever been found at excavation sites like Jerusalem, Megiddo and Hazor, so this provides a unique window into an entire aspect of life from which we've never had physical evidence before," Erez Ben-Yosef, the Tel Aviv University archaeologist who led the excavation in late January and February, said in a statement Wednesday. "We found fragments of textiles that originated