At the end of each day, somewhere around 9 p.m., comes this moment: I let the cat in. She nibbles at the food left in her bowl, then goes upstairs to the dog bed in our room. (No one told her it’s a dog bed; she just thinks it’s a really, really big cat bed.) Tired and satisfied from her twilight wanderings outdoors, she curls into a ball and goes to sleep. The dog, having driven us crazy with her... Read more
I walked outside after my book group meeting last night around 10:30, and the air not only felt like fall, it smelled like fall—the mild tang of leaf mold, a hint of smoke. We still have summer-like days ahead of us, no doubt, but fall is creeping in—including in my garden. Here, a bee gets busy with a fall-blooming purple sedum. Another few weeks and it will be time to cut down the perennials, re-seed the lawn, and (horrors) take the... Read more
This headline from the Huffington Post: “8 Ways Screens are Ruining Your Family’s Life.” Ah, nothing like a good dose of hyperbolic hysteria to get an audience riled up! You, with the TVs and laptops and smartphones: Betcha didn’t know you were ruining your family’s life, did you? This is a popular bandwagon to climb aboard these days, with new anti-screen arguments, articles, and web sites, many directed at parents, popping up regularly. A viral YouTube video by Charlene Guzman... Read more
My lost-then-found diamond has become a metaphor for our marriage—lasting and solid and brilliant even when months and years go by when its shine, quality, and distinctiveness are hidden in the scrum of everyday life, obscured by groceries and vacuuming and the many loads we carry. Read more
Oh, but this is an uncomfortable place to be, this place of uncertainty, where we are confronted with the grave suffering of God's beloved children and want to do something but suspect that there is nothing we can do to make it better, now. Read more
The kids went back to school on Wednesday, all smiles and energy. (The teenager left too early to be photographed, and wouldn’t have wanted to be anyway.) We had a truly terrific summer—summer camp, the 4H Fair, swim lessons, a final camping trip last weekend. And now we’re all ready to plunge back into the school year. Including me. I’ll be back to regular blogging next week. Read more
In church choir, my children are learning what it means not just to go to church, but what it is to be church for one another—what it means to be in a fellowship of people with a common faith, where standards are high and all are accepted, with a common goal of worshipping God with their best efforts and talents. Read more
Hello friends. I am popping in to say that I will be blogging minimally between now and September 1st. I will be devoting much time to writing a chapter for the upcoming genre-busting Disquiet Time, which will be like no devotional book you’ve ever read (and will include chapters from some of my favorite blogging colleagues as well as some “big name” folk). I am also blogging weekly for my church’s new blog, which features writing from our clergy and for... Read more
By now, it’s old news that one in five Americans, including one-third of adults under 30, claim no religious affiliation. Popular blogger and author Rachel Held Evans, who identifies primarily as an evangelical, wrote a much-shared CNN blog post about how churches can attract disaffected “millennials,” or young adults, back to church. (She is talking mostly about young evangelicals disenchanted with the trappings of that particular expression of faith, rather than young people who reject religion altogether.) No, it’s not about having hip... Read more
There’s a new imprint in town! Convergent Books is a division of Penguin Random House dedicated to books on progressive Christianity. I am thrilled and honored to have been invited to contribute to their new blog. My first post, on the redemption of the mundane (how I glimpse God’s goodness in the banal details of my suburban life), went up yesterday. Click on over to read, and check out some amazing new books coming our way from Convergent! If someone... Read more
Ellen Painter Dollar
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