I have the privilege of being on the launch team for Abdu Murray's newly released book, Saving Truth: Finding Meaning & Clarity in a Post-Truth World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2018)*. The invitation to join the team came a week or two after my second son was born, and I hesitated to join, unsure if I could clear…
Five Minute Friday (on Monday): only
The Christmas tree in the corner, surprise snow on Friday, a schedule quickly filling with festivities of all varieties . . . . somehow, weaving in and out through all the carols of glory this past week, I've had a crucifixion hymn singing. Stricken, smitten, and afflicted, see him dying on the tree. 'Tis the…
Five Minute Friday: create
"There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate." I write lying on my back on an ironing board leaned agains the couch, head down, feet up -- thanks SpinningBabies -- in hopes of encouraging a stubbornly…
lament. rejoice.
We're topping international headlines with our news of racially-charged violence, and I'm remembering how, after 9/11, my family's Ugandan sponsored child wrote to tell us she was praying for our country: she in whose country the LRA was kidnapping children and brutalizing communities while the world at large barely batted an eye. I've been trying…
Five Minute Friday (on Saturday): pass
I looked it up on the computer dictionary: pass. Not because I don't know what it means, but because it means so many things. All the definitions share this in common: they involve some sort of motion, from point A to point B or beyond. I could take it a million different ways, but today…
Five Minute Friday: surprise
Tell all the truth, but tell it slant-- Emily Dickinson advises: Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind-- I thought of this poem as I read of Paul's account…
possible: small and glad, day 6
“I dwell in Possibility -- / A fairer House than Prose,” quoth Emily Dickinson. I always stop and look at that juxtaposition: possibility vs. prose. Not poetry vs. prose, nor yet again possibility vs. certainty — negative or positive certainty. I suspect Dickinson wanted me to look at it. To think that somehow she means…
Five Minute Friday (on Saturday): Yes
"For all the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ Jesus]. . ." (2 Corinthians 1:20). I don't even have words to follow that . . . all the promises. ALL of them. The seed of the woman promised to Adam and Eve -- to crush the serpent's head: Yes. The promise to Noah…
Five Minute Friday (on Monday): find
So I find it to be a law, Paul says, that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. Sin is crouching at your door, the LORD warned Cain. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. You must rule over sin. But you are enslaved to sin, sold and law-bound…
sorrows. and words.
A social media share led me to this list of "23 Perfect Words for Emotions You Never Realized Anyone Else Felt". Gathered from John Koenig's Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, the invented words are designed to "fill holes in the language," naming feelings for which, previously, there has been no name. "Monachopsis" describes "the subtle but persistent feeling…
Between Blue Rocks 