Why Turning Thanksgiving Day into Shopping Day is un-American

Last updated on: November 27, 2013 at 9:45 am By Rachel Marie Stone

Okay, that title might be a little extreme, but bear with me. I’m kind of upset about this whole “stores opening for Black Friday on Thanksgiving Day” thing. My feelings go beyond mere nostalgia for Thanksgivings past. Our nationally observed holidays erode, gradually but certainly, with every wave of unending commerce. It’s a regrettable and embarrassing move that suggests what we value most is not in fact family, religion, history, or even the cherished notion that God has blessed America.... Read more

Don’t Heap Contempt On the Poor, Ever. Even if you think they ‘deserve’ it.

Last updated on: November 26, 2013 at 8:00 am By Rachel Marie Stone

So, some colleagues (whom I also count as friends) and I came across this ridiculous list of “20 Things the Rich Do Every Day” on Dave Ramsey’s blog. While I hear that Ramsey’s work has been helpful to many, we were taken aback by the context-free presentation of these (unverified) statistics, all of which paint the rich as enlightened, healthy, intelligent, benevolent, disciplined and the poor as…well, the opposite of all that. Some things on the list were patently ridiculous,... Read more

Anne Lamott, and Why The Masthead of This Blog is a Raggedy Quilt.

Last updated on: November 25, 2013 at 3:00 am By Rachel Marie Stone

Anne Lamott totally stole my metaphor. No, not really. But her new book, Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair, plays with the metaphor that made me choose that particular photograph for my masthead and, moreover, explains my love of quilts, especially the kind made from bits of cast-off clothes or leftover scraps that aren’t good for anything until they are stitched together into something beautiful. On the wall of my mother in law’s house hangs a gorgeous old... Read more

Non-Guilt-Trippy Ways To Live Lightly And Consume Less

Last updated on: November 20, 2013 at 8:35 am By Rachel Marie Stone

Many Christians these days are trying to consume less, and they’re doing so for a variety of reasons. For some, in the wake of the economic downturn, thrift is a simple necessity. Others, inspired by books such as Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution, Jen Hatmaker’s 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess (among others) strive for simplicity for the sake of the health of God’s creation and for the sake of our neighbors–both local and global–who must do without even the... Read more

Buffy the Infectious Disease Slayer

Last updated on: November 15, 2013 at 6:00 am By Rachel Marie Stone

The anti-vaccination thing–and resulting resurgence of previously near-eradicated diseases–has gotten so out of control that, apparently, Sarah Michelle Gellar is encouraging people to get vaccinated. As I’ve written before, I’m a pretty big fan of vaccines. It doesn’t hurt that each time I go to town I see the shriveled and useless limbs of polio survivors who beg for a living. There is a fantastic piece in the New Republic by Julia Ioffe: Here is a very small taste: It... Read more

God Has Given You Good Gifts. Learn to Love Them Well.

Last updated on: November 13, 2013 at 8:27 am By Rachel Marie Stone

While I do realize that it might be taken as a teensy bit self-serving to share emails from readers, this one was so good that I begged the good person who sent it to me to allow me to share it, which she graciously allowed me to do. (Identifying details have been removed.) I’m a pastor in a poor, rural church, and I am going to be preaching on the topic of food. During seminary, through the influence of Robert... Read more

Eating With Our Daughters (With Joy!) + A National Adoption Month Special!

Last updated on: November 11, 2013 at 7:26 am By Rachel Marie Stone

Today, in honor of National Adoption Month, I’m delighted to welcome my friend Jennifer Grant to the blog to talk about ‘eating with joy’ with her two daughters, one of whom she adopted from Guatemala. Click through to the end to order Jennifer’s book, Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter, while it’s on sale for under $2! RS: Let’s talk about raising healthy daughters. Your two daughters (Isabel, 13, to whom you gave birth, and Mia,... Read more

On The Third Day, The Lord Created the Remington Bolt-Action Rifle So Man Could Defend Hisself Against the Dinosaurs.

Last updated on: November 8, 2013 at 2:34 pm By Rachel Marie Stone

In case I didn’t tell you before: I homeschool our kids. It’s a choice that raises a lot of eyebrows, especially among the many Europeans we encounter in the former colonial capital where we live. “Do you do that for…religious reasons?” a German woman asked me. There was caution in her voice, as if she feared she was inquiring about some kind of bizarre and possibly gruesome secret rite. Another woman told me she doubted that I’d make any friends... Read more

My Contrarian–Non-Ideological–View of Homeschooling

Last updated on: November 7, 2013 at 9:30 am By Rachel Marie Stone

I’ve written a two-part post on homeschooling for the new–and very good–Convergent blog. I find myself in a weird sort of place when it comes to my thoughts and experiences about schooling, because while in principle I believe firmly that it is society’s duty to provide equal access to education of the highest quality to every student–and I am not enamored of the ideology that suggests that public schools–often forebodingly called “government schools” as if government in this country were... Read more

“Open Thy Hand Wide”: Moses, Calvin & the Origins of American Liberalism

Last updated on: November 6, 2013 at 5:00 am By Rachel Marie Stone

This morning I saw that Al Mohler–a prominent spokesperson for what is called conservative evangelical and, most interestingly for the purposes of this discussion, Reformed, Christianity had shared a short piece in the National Review with the alarming subtitle: “Schools see it as their job to make kids reject their parents’ conservative values.” The author, Dennis Prager, is perhaps not known for moderation in his opinions, but I found the piece a fascinating example of exactly the kind of polarization... Read more