The first time I really got Mary was on Good Friday a few years ago. In a very solemn service the night of Great and Holy Friday, as the day is called in the Orthodox Church, a series of funeral dirges are sung, one after another. I stood there in a dark church, a bier with an embroidered icon of the crucified Christ in the middle of the room, as the chanters and congregation expressed the mystery of the Lord’s... Read more
The most obvious thing to do with mothers is to celebrate them. I watch my Megan day in and out striving to raise, nurture, encourage, protect, correct, and prepare our kids. It’s a humbling thing to behold. When I say that I couldn’t do it, I say the obvious. When I say that she does, I speak of the miraculous. God has a special concern for mothers, something apparent in both the Bible and the memory of the church, which... Read more
In her essay “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction,” Flannery O’Connor writes that readers desire and even need something uplifting in the books that they read. “There is something in us,” she says, “as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored.” At Thomas Nelson, where I work, we strive to publish stories that are in some sense redemptive. It’s a priority at the... Read more
When you note personal or spiritual growth in your life, there can be a tendency to disparage your past, to look down on a self that you might now regard as wrong or naive or simply juvenile. I’ve been listening to tracks stored in the dusty, cobwebbed corners of my iPod lately. Songs I haven’t heard in years are tumbling out, one after another. There’s a lot of 77s, Bob Dylan, Bill Mallonee, Tom Petty, and Daniel Amos. Sometimes the... Read more
Little things can affect dramatic change — good and bad — even if you’re unaware that any transformation is underway. If you walk into my kitchen, it might appear at times like a laboratory. Meg and I brew our own kombucha, several gallons of which sit on the countertop, happily fermenting away. We also make our own yogurt, kefir, and lactofermented vegetables, carrots mostly. We’re next thinking about making our own sourdough. It’s as easy as it is fun. All... Read more
My Moses can be a fickle child. The other night he said in his singsongy, Luganda-tinged voice, “You are not my daddy.” It’s a funny thing to hear as an adoptive father. My response was funny too. It was a knee-jerk thing — accidental, really — but I dropped some theology on the boy. “You’re right,” I said, “I’m not your father by nature. I’m you’re father by grace.” Come again? It was out of my mouth before I really... Read more
My son Fionn and I play the drive-time game Slug Bug. The idea, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is to identify as many Volkswagen Beetles as possible while out and about and thereby rack up points against your opponent. Right now I’m creaming my kid, I’m proud to say. Don’t feel sorry for him. He used to win all the time. One thing I’ve noticed is that since playing, I see Bugs everywhere — all the time. Red ones, blue... Read more
You know the song that runs, “Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket”? Try subbing out the word “Christian” for “star” and you’ve just identified one of the world’s favorite pastimes. The most recent manifestation of this is the dating service that is offering a million dollars if a person can prove that she (or possibly he I suppose) has had sex with Tim Tebow, the popular New York Jets quarterback and outspoken evangelical Christian. Tebow’s professed... Read more
On the Sunday after Easter the Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates the encounter of the Apostle Thomas with the risen Jesus. You know the story. Skeptical about his fellow disciples’ enthusiastic claims of the resurrection, Thomas took a wait-and-see attitude, earning him the moniker Doubting Thomas. But then, when Christ appeared to him, Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” There in that moment Doubting Thomas became Believing Thomas. Two things stand out for me about this encounter. One is clear... Read more
It’s easy to get frustrated at God and the way he appears to be ignoring our plans and prayers. But God’s ways are not, so Isaiah informs us, ours. And it’s interesting what can happen when we look back at unfulfilled ambitions, unplanned occurrences, and unanswered prayers. Sometimes we can see God winking at us through the supposed disappointment. Why? Because in retrospect it all turned out so much better than we had hoped. If we think about it, we... Read more
Joel J. Miller
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