A benecription for the church
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A benecription for the church

“‘God told me to pray for you,’ she says. Her words linger like cloying perfume in a claustrophobic space. ‘God wants to heal you!’ She is undoubtedly thrilled with this opportunity. I’ve been here before. It never ends well.” So begins Amy Kenny’s must-read My Body is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the…

So that all can come to God
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So that all can come to God

Intrigued by the description of Rohadi Nagassar’s book When We Belong: Reclaiming Christianity on the Margins, I read the book eager to learn more about enfolding those on the margins into the church. For ten years I was a chaplain and pastor to people on the margins of our society: those who live in Long…

The Simple Act of Waking Up
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The Simple Act of Waking Up

“When I look at the / black freckles on the / right side of my beloved’s / face it becomes // clear that I am here”

Timely and timeless
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Timely and timeless

“Reading the morning newspaper is the realist’s morning prayer,” quipped the philosopher Hegel. If he’s right, what does this reveal about my own heart when I groggily reach for my smartphone upon waking up, scrolling through headlines before even a word of prayer to God or a verse of Scripture? Jeffrey Bilbro’s Reading the Times…

Jubilant play!
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Jubilant play!

Author and illustrator Julie Flett attributes her love for the land, animals, and all of nature to the gentle heart of her Cree-Métis father, Clarence Flett (1936-2019). In an author note, she explains, “When I was growing up, my dad shared a lot about our relationship to animals and to each other, including the land,…

Dialogue within the ‘bond of peace’
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Dialogue within the ‘bond of peace’

Since Synod 2016 the Christian Reformed Church has been studying, discussing and agonizing over same-sex relationships. That year, Synod created a committee which produced what is now called the Human Sexuality Report (HSR). Among other issues, the HSR recommended that homosexual activity breaks the seventh Commandment and is thus prohibited. Synod 2022 took the report…

Pentecost joy!
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Pentecost joy!

“Josey Johnson’s hair is a wonderful adventure — it’s different all the time! Some days it’s a ponytail or pigtails or a curly afro. And some days Josey’s hair has a mind of its own!” So begins author Esau McCaulley’s spirited portrayal of a girl who feels the pain of being different because her hair…

Fantasia in D Minor
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Fantasia in D Minor

It’s late on a Sunday afternoon and I’m lying on our living room floor as our youngest practices piano – Mozart’s Fantasia in D minor. It’s nearing the end of the piano lesson year, so Esther knows and plays the piece well at this point. It is an astonishingly and achingly beautiful piece of music….

Communicating Jesus Through Cloth
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Communicating Jesus Through Cloth

I’ve always enjoyed making things. A friend once introduced me to a retired Wycliffe missionary who taught me to weave and allowed me to borrow a small four-shaft table loom. I didn’t weave again for years. Then in 2015 I did a special project as part of ethnographic research in the Solomon Islands: the banana-fiber…

A beautiful piece of pandemic art
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A beautiful piece of pandemic art

I have to admit, watching the first episode of HBO’s series Station Eleven was extremely difficult. Triggering almost, with exhausted healthcare professionals in ubiquitous blue masks, fighting against an insidious respiratory virus with a devastating mortality rate, as the population reacted with various levels of panic and denial. It felt insensitive that someone felt the…

Remembering and waiting
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Remembering and waiting

As young Ashley walks to school through the quiet countryside, a car speeds past her and drops off an elderly man by a dilapidated railroad track where the old train station used to stand. The First Nations girl recognizes her great-uncle and runs to him. When she asks Uncle why he has come to sit…

Reaching the Hispanic world
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Reaching the Hispanic world

Last month I was delighted to receive in the mail a hefty copy of Visiones e Ilusiones Políticas, the Spanish translation of Political Visions and Illusions, which had just come out days earlier. Published by Teología para Vivir in Lima, Peru, it is a hard-bound volume running to 420 pages in eminently readable print and…