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Thin Places

We’re moving next year. Just for the year while Peter goes back to school. But it still means packing our things and finding new doctors and new friends and, most worrisome to me, a new school for Penny. So I went online and looked at the website for the school system where we’ll be living.…

A few years back, I came across a passage in which God instructs the Israelites to set apart six cities as “cities of refuge,” places where people may flee if they unintentionally kill another person. (See Deuteronomy 19 for a fuller explanation.) And it struck me then that I also need cities of refuge, places…

First, I have a new post on 843 Acres discussing euthanasia: “Euthanasia and the Right to be a Burden.”  Second, two years ago, I went out to Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing, and I’m headed back in April. I’ll be leading a “circle” on Writing as Ministry, and I want to invite any…

As readers of this blog know, my husband and I have given up alcohol for Lent. In my initial post on the topic (“Considering Lent: Disruptive Grace“), I wrote about my hope that deliberately changing a habit would open my eyes to see more of God’s work in the world. I hoped it would make…

Today, I am headed to Edenton, North Carolina, for a visit and a bookreading. It’s my hometown, although I haven’t lived there in over two decades. Still, its streets and buildings and stories and, most of all, people, shaped me, and I am grateful for the gifts of that place. So in honor of Edenton,…

A few weeks ago, a reader of this blog wrote to ask me what I thought about the use of “the r-word” in movies. She wrote about a movie where one scene includes a joke about the word “retard.” In her words, “I found the movie in it’s entirety funny even when one scene made…

I have a new post on The Park Forum: “Work: A Curse or a Blessing?“

When my husband was in college, he and his roommates were captivated by Christian asceticism. “Beat my body and make it my own,” was one of their mottos. This discipline mostly translated into not sleeping much and fasting from meals on a regular basis. It seemed a bit silly to me at the time. “Honor…

I’m planning to write more about “the R-word” (and even the designation of the word retarded as “the R-word”) next week. For those of you interested in more reading right now, I’ll commend to you Louise Kinross’ comments on BLOOM: “The R-Word: It’s a Hateful Slur That’s Got to Go” and “The Tyranny of Two…

When Penny was three-weeks old, I was on the phone, telling the story of her birth to a friend. I had gone over all those details so many times by that point, it was a relief to ask her the question, “How are you?” She talked about their kids, and then moved on to the…
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