“So, I leave for a moment to make my coffee and you hear an owl,” I laughingly said to Rachel. We were sitting in our backyard garden, enjoying what was left of the sunrise before it created the intense summer heat. It was the rare time of day when the birds are louder than the…
A retired farmer helped me better understand the importance of “core values” for a Christian organization. In a church workshop some years ago, I had finished demonstrating how the congregation’s core values were uniquely relevant for pursuing fruitful ministry. Then, during coffee break, the farmer told me that there were different soil types in his…
Author and illustrator Carly Allen-Fletcher’s passionate, articulate narrative and spectacular, vivid artwork will draw children into the breathtaking wonders of God’s creation. Allen-Fletcher points out that there is life all around us, some seen, much unseen. She explains that scientists sort different types of life (based on differences in their cells and how they live)…
I like to think of God, after a long day of creating, ambling across the fields, stopping to get a closer look at a particular bud on a plant, leaning in close to watch a bee digging its burrow in a bare patch of earth, or gazing upward to whistle at the aurora in the…
For many years, I taught large (300+) introductory first-year psychology classes. Classes were composed of diverse students. Some were there as future psychology majors, others were looking for an “easy” elective. Some were hardworking students seeking an A+, while others simply aimed to pass. Some students were athletes on a university team, while others were…
“Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him” (Prov. 26:4). “Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes” (Prov. 26:5). These back-to-back proverbs contradict each other. My wife and I joke that she tends more toward the latter…
Looking for a new nature-themed book to share with the kids in your life this summer? In this lovely children’s book, author Jordan Zwetchkenbaum shares her passion for planting and nurturing her garden for the pollinators that inhabit it and for the betterment of the earth. With a vivacious child as their guide, kids will…
Most of the inland lakes I fish contain stocked trout: coastal cutthroats in Helen Lake, Blackwater rainbow trout in Irrigation Lake and eastern brook trout in Klinger Lake. Often this is because there is no spawning stream available for fish to be able to reproduce their ilk. As far as I know, none of these…
I go down to the river to pray. /
Its water tumbles to the Mississippi, /
a major artery, open to the open sea . . .
I’m remembering church picnics. It’s summer nostalgia, of course. The wind in the trees outside my window and the sound of kids playing. I’m leaving church after the service and thinking about watermelon, remembering the tote bag my mom put the thermos in and the way she folded a travelling rug on top and the…
The title of Madeleine Jubilee Saito’s book intrigued me. What, I wondered, are visual poems? And how would poetry be used to contribute to the climate discussion? As I paged through the book the first time, I could tell it wasn’t a usual book of wordy poems. In fact, there weren’t many words at all….
I first noticed it in personal correspondence. It seemed quaint, maybe even a tad archaic. But the word recurred in all the letters, and often many times in each correspondence. There it was in his last letter to me. “I am glad you have reissued [Beyond Homelessness] again.” “I have been so glad to reread…
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