Blog Archive
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Twenty years ago, author Anne Lamott was ambushed by her unexpected pregnancy. Her best selling 1993 memoir, Operating Instructions, describes her tumultuous first year as a single mother after her son Sam’s birth. When Sam turned 19, he told his…
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A short stack of mini-reviews
Is there anything more inviting than a stack of books waiting TBR (to be read)? Whether they’re piled on a nightstand, a coffee table or next to a Adirondack chair parked alongside a freshwater lake, the promise of new worlds…
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Teaching to indoctrinate or to educate?
It took me a long time to understand the difference between teaching (informing, enlightening) and preaching (re-presenting the Good News). It is unusual in our culture to find a church with leaders who are gifted preachers. Most churches we’ve attended…
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Like Being At My Own Funeral, Kind Of
A few months ago, my sister told me she was making me something for my birthday. She does seem to enjoy handyman-type projects like replacing toilets, but I never figured her for a crafter. Her gift box arrived last week,…
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Let it begin with me…
I spend a lot of time online. It is poach-an-egg-on-the-windshield hot outside. Combine the two, and it is entirely possible that my perceptions of today’s overheated rhetoric about the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling upholding the individual mandate in the national…
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Piper, Israel and me
This week, Christianity Today’s website featured the first round of volleys between David Brickner, the head of Jews for Jesus and John Piper, author and pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. The question being debated is “Do Jews Have…