I wiled away my youth avoiding physical activity of all sorts and types, as far as it was up to me. As a little kid I'm sure I ran around and stuff, but once I was smacked with all the horrendous hormones of early adulthood, I, whenever possible, never moved from my chair and my book, except to do the dishes which seemed a great imposition from my unreasonable parents, and to feed all my pets, which was a gentle... Read more
Monday is our dentist day. I'm slowly trying to get us reorganized into groups so we're not just always going to the dentist. I managed to get three kids in yesterday, but I think it really needs to be two two and two. And Matt needs to stop wildly making appointments without calling me. And I need to stop chipping my teeth and getting holes in them and stuff (that's all technical language). If you had told me twenty years... Read more
We pushed through on Saturday and moved ourselves back upstairs so that I am now lying here, no longer looking at the brick walk of the church, but at a small corner of the wall, some strange pipe sticking it of it, and the sun lightening the hillside with a pale thought of pink and buds, perhaps. Though perhaps not. Maybe it is a trick of the light. Matt is reading proverbs and saying the ones out loud that he... Read more
One Took the week off from school to spring clean and completely rearrange the house. Swapped the girls and boys rooms and moved out of the office and back into our own bedroom. Somehow, as it does almost every year, it became clear that we have to clean and reorganize and we have to do it before Holy Week or we will perish. Felt like I was on the edge of eradicating yeast from the house but restrained myself to... Read more
A number of critics attack the character of God’s love for all humanity by comparing Hell to Auschwitz. Would a loving God send his creatures there? There are several differences between hell and Auschwitz, but two are dramatic and must be emphasized: 1. No one would choose to be in Auschwitz and 2. no one would choose to remain there if given the option to leave. Whereas scripture teaches us that the character of the human heart is such that unless... Read more
A few days before my grandmother died, way back when, I had a strange and unraveling dream. I dreamt that I was driving a car along a road carved out of a mountain, narrow, precarious, with a serene blue ocean below the steep cliffs. Of course, in the dream, the car turned against my will and plunged slowly and agonizingly into the sea and I found myself floating along, under the water, holding a basket. And of course, in the... Read more
Karen and Joe (much discussion was had about what they preferred to be called, how to pronounce their last name, what would happen if you joined their two names together, a worthy and very interesting conversation from the night before) sensibly got married at 11:30 on Saturday morning. The timing of a wedding makes all the difference. Too late and everyone is tired before it starts. Too early and nobody is awake. 11:30 was perfect. It gave me time to... Read more
Continuing on where I left of yesterday… Once safely inside we settled ourselves comfortably by counting the beds (7), putting the kettle on, fortifying ourselves with a whole bag of brownies, searching about for the internet, and beginning the long long squabble about the seven beds. The little girls pinged around on the furniture like those balls in that arcade game (what is that called?), running up and down and climbing and jumping and starting again. They do that all... Read more
I am prying my eyes open from a deep healing sleep. I know it's nine o'clock already and all sensible people are at work and swimming in the true bath of reality and gainful normal life, but Monday is my day off anyway, so really, nothing is that out of the ordinary. Except that I drove to Indiana on Friday and then drove back on Sunday and lived what seemed one small whole life time in between. I had drifted... Read more
Since moving to Binghamton in June of 2002 I’ve come to think of this as perhaps the best possible place to preach the gospel in North America. It’s hard ground not only because of economic depression, apathy, and statist regulation, but there is also a spiritual darkness over the place and underneath it, driving the apathy. There are lots of churches here, one or two on just about every corner. But many, if not most of them, are empty or emptying,... Read more
Preventing Grace
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