Ellen Painter Dollar
Not all pain is gain. Pain is not always fixable. This is the truth. But it is not a hopeless truth. Read more
Not all pain is gain. Pain is not always fixable. This is the truth. But it is not a hopeless truth. Read more
(This post is a departure for me, more of a creative semi-autobiographical vignette, perhaps even a piece of what could become a short story. Whatever it is, it has been wanting to be written for many weeks now.) She was alone in the kitchen, the weak gray light and clink of dishes as she unloaded them from the dishwasher signs that another ordinary Wednesday was coming to a close. While sitting down for a family dinner most nights was a... Read more
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. “Blessed are the merciful,... Read more
My two younger kids were feeling nostalgic the other night. While they have long been in the habit of reading on their own at bedtime, last night they pulled a few favorite picture books off the shelf (The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton, Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel, and a falling-apart-and-taped-and-retaped copy of Richard Scarry’s Busy Busy World that was mine as a child) and asked me to read. Our ad hoc storytime echoed the hundreds of nights when we had babies, toddlers, and preschoolers who required... Read more
At first, I thought it was Onion-style satire. I kept seeing a link show up in my Facebook feed to a Religion News Service (RNS) poll asking, “If you were Brittany Maynard, what would you do?” The link was not to another blog post or essay discussing Brittany Maynard’s decision to pre-emptively end her life on November 1 rather than allow her terminal brain cancer to progress and ultimately kill her. Rather, it was to a poll. An actual poll asking... Read more
When it comes to many controversial sociopolitical issues facing Christians (and everyone else) today, I usually take, or at least acknowledge, a middle road. For example, on the use of genetic and reproductive technologies, such as IVF, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and prenatal screening, I write with the intent of educating people so they can ask good questions about the morality of such technologies. I don’t write to persuade people that one ethical approach is clearly superior. Even on issues such... Read more
The face on this week’s People magazine cover is Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old, recently married woman who went public with her plan to take a fatal prescription on November 1, rather than live with her terminal brain cancer until its deadly end. Her reasons include not merely avoiding the suffering she expects to experience, but also protecting her loved ones from the awful reality of watching her deteriorate. Maynard shared her decision with the national media with the support of an organization that is lobbying... Read more
The Bible is an invitation. An invitation to contemplate who we are, as individuals, communities, and as a species. An invitation to contemplate and encounter what is holy and sacred, which is found smack in the middle of the mundane, the ordinary, and the difficult as often (even more often, I think) as it is found in the strange, the extraordinary, and the transcendent. Read more
I have struggled to pray for most of my life. Prayer has rarely made sense to me, not in an intellectual sense, but as a practical matter. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing when I pray, especially when I’m praying by myself. I feel restless and off-kilter, my efforts awkward and superficial. A few months ago, I wrote a post on my Patheos blog about my years of trying, and failing, to keep a daily individual prayer practice. I... Read more
Lately I’m being eaten alive by everything on my to-do list. It’s hard to communicate just how crazed my schedule is without 1) boring you to pieces, and 2) sounding like a first-class whiner. So I’ll just say there is an awful lot going on. © 2010 Dave Dugdale, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio Many of the tasks keeping me so busy are related to various volunteer jobs. I do all the registration paperwork and financial record keeping for... Read more
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