“Should you ask Santa for a tablet or an e-reader?” Edward C. Baig, writing for USA Today, recently asked this question in an article the evaluates the relative benefits and limits of tablets and e-readers. His article does an excellent job laying out the specifics and making recommendations. If you’re thinking about purchasing a tablet or an e-reader and aren’t quite sure what do to, I urge you to check out Baig’s piece. If you’re interested, I’ll give you my... Read more
Click on the image to the right to see the Advent doodle for Thursday, December 1. For the last seven years, I have put up an online Advent calendar during the season of Advent. It featured pictures suitable for the season, matched with passages of Scripture. This year, I’m doing an online Advent Calendar once again, but with some exciting new content. I am using Advent Doodles by my wife, Linda. She has a unique ministry of doodling, combining her... Read more
Click on the image to the right to see the Advent doodle for Wednesday, November 30. For the last seven years, I have put up an online Advent calendar during the season of Advent. It featured pictures suitable for the season, matched with passages of Scripture. This year, I’m doing an online Advent Calendar once again, but with some exciting new content. I am using Advent Doodles by my wife, Linda. She has a unique ministry of doodling, combining her... Read more
In a recent edition of the New York Times I read an article that I found both fascinating and disturbing. In “At Top Colleges, Anti-Wall St. Fervor Complicates Recruiting,” Kevin Roose describes the efforts of students in the Occupy Wall Street movement to keep their fellow students from interviewing for jobs in banking and finance. Here’s how the article begins: College students seeking jobs on Wall Street have always had hurdles to overcome — grueling applications, endless rounds of interviews... Read more
Click on the image to the right to see the Advent doodle for Tuesday, November 29. For the last seven years, I have put up an online Advent calendar during the season of Advent. It featured pictures suitable for the season, matched with passages of Scripture. This year, I’m doing an online Advent Calendar once again, but with some exciting new content. I am using Advent Doodles by my wife, Linda. She has a unique ministry of doodling, combining her... Read more
In the Broadway musical Mame, eccentric Mame Dennis loses her fortune in the Wall Street crash of 1929. Believing that she and her household need some cheering up, she sings what has now become a popular holiday song, “We Need a Little Christmas.” The final chorus rings with seasonal desire: Slice up the fruitcake; It’s time we hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough. For we need a little music, Need a little laughter, Need a little singing Ringing through... Read more
I’m pleased to have recently read three online reviews of my new e-book, Discovering Advent: How to Experience the Power of Waiting on God at Christmastime. The first appears at Faith, Fiction, Friends, the blog of Glynn Young. After sharing his own experience of knowing very little about Advent, Glynn writes: I knew what [Advent] was, but I didn’t fully understand the meaning of the candles or even the colors associated with Advent until I read Discovering Advent by Mark... Read more
Click on the image to the right to see the Advent doodle for Monday, November 28. For the last seven years, I have put up an online Advent calendar during the season of Advent. It featured pictures suitable for the season, matched with passages of Scripture. This year, I’m doing an online Advent Calendar once again, but with some exciting new content. I am using Advent Doodles by my wife, Linda. She has a unique ministry of doodling, combining her... Read more
Recently, I was interviewed by The High Calling on the topic of Advent. Well, strictly speaking, I was interviewed by Marcus Goodyear, the Senior Editor of The High Calling and one of my colleagues at Foundations for Laity Renewal. Marcus does a fine interview, which means, from my point of view, that his questions were relevant to the topic at hand and slightly unexpected. In other words, he made me think. No well-worn soundbites for me! Here is Marcus’ first... Read more
Mark D. Roberts
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Score at the End of the Second Inning: McDonalds 2, San Francisco 1
San Francisco was leading at the end of the first inning by a score of 1-0. I think San Francisco thought they had won the game, beating McDonalds soundly. But it turns out that there are more innings to be played, and McDonalds is leading at the end of the second. Let me explain what I’m talking about. I’ve been watching with interest a “game” going on in San Francisco, California. (A battle? A war?) The Board of Supervisors approved... Read more