It makes sense that God became incarnate as a man. Not because God is one gender or the other, but because in Jesus’s Palestine, a woman would not have gotten the public attention that Jesus got. A woman’s wisdom, acts of compassion, and miracles would likely have been noticed only by her immediate family and community, and not written down. If God meant to change the world through Jesus, then God needed people to pay attention. And for most of... Read more
To dismiss the online world as a repository for irrelevant banter by narcissistic blowhards who are ignoring their families is both inaccurate and unfair to those for whom social media enables valuable, life-giving work. Read more
For years, I pored over magazine spreads and home catalogs, made graph-paper renderings of kitchen plans, and daydreamed of white Shaker cabinets, the perfect sectional sofa, and a sun-drenched window seat. I felt guilty for my materialism, for how much I cared about such superficial things, because I believed that a good Christian shouldn’t (not guilty enough to give up the daydreaming, though). Forget the “prosperity gospel,” the (rightfully maligned) view that material wealth proves God’s favor. My progressive Christian... Read more
Eight years ago, when my three children were still very young, we traveled to Omaha for an Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) Foundation conference. Both I and my oldest daughter have OI, a genetic collagen disorder that causes brittle bones, short stature, and other symptoms. As we were checking in at the conference hotel, I glanced up and saw a young woman. She was less than five feet tall, with a square, thick torso over thin legs, and wavy shoulder-length brown hair.... Read more
“Look at those fingers! And her toes! So long and skinny…just like yours, Ellen.” I don’t recall how many people uttered those words during the early weeks of my firstborn’s life. Maybe only two or three. But I felt bombarded by this innocent observation. Shortly after my daughter’s birth, my husband, who accompanied her for a bath as I was stitched up after my c-section, had mentioned that her eyes were a “funny color.” At that first hint that my... Read more
Being a writer is primarily about writing—not about following some social media guru's five-step system for getting the most attention for each blog post, or about keywords and SEO. Read more
It occurs to me that nothing is simple—no matter how pithy or clever or heartfelt our words about it. In forums like Facebook, we speak as if all sorts of things, all the –isms and how to be present to our families and connected-but-not-too-much and our reaction to injustices occurring half a world away, are simple. Read more
At the Festival of Faith and Writing two weeks ago in Grand Rapids, Michigan, my friend Jennifer Grant and I co-led a discussion group titled “Troll-Proofing Your Online Writing.” Based on our conversations and my own reading and musing, here are a few thoughts about what we can and can’t do about trolls, and why it’s vital that we do something. Trolls cause real and significant damage. Several circle participants said the biggest benefit of our conversation was realizing that they are... Read more
Saturday night, as we drove south on Route 9 in the rainy twilight, a billboard shone out from the gloom. In huge white letters on a red background were the words, “Jesus, I Love You.” Although I’ve seen this billboard before, this time the words struck me as seriously off base. “No,” I thought. “My love of Jesus isn’t the point. My love of Jesus isn’t the good news of the Gospel. God’s love for me—for all of us—is the... Read more
Last night, I gave a lecture at the University of Hartford to students in a humanities seminar studying ideas of utopia and dystopia. I gave my usual talk about my story as told in my book, No Easy Choice, and included some reflections on how dystopian novels, particularly Lois Lowry’s The Giver, can illuminate the purposes and pitfalls of technological reproduction. The students asked some great questions and made important observations. As I drove home, I kept thinking about one young woman’s response... Read more
Ellen Painter Dollar
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In