People have a lot to say these days about the Christian faith, specifically the iteration of Christianity labeled “evangelical.” What does it mean to be evangelical? Should people continue to use the term because of historical or theological significance? Has the current political climate rendered the term void? The takes are countless. I want to…
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** In the wake of the marches on Charlottesville, Virginia on August 11th and 12th I have decided to write about my journey (still in progress) of divesting myself of whiteness, and some of the things I’ve learned along the way. Before getting in to discussions explicitly pertaining to race, I believe it will be…
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One of the most sure-fire ways to get under my skin is to cop a grandiose (and often far-reaching) “Well, the Bible clearly says…” in the middle of a conversation about the intersection of faith and policy and our shared life together as humans flying through space on a living rock. There’s not much about…
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“Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.” …
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Over the summer my mom found a cookbook from the early 1900’s in one of the closets at my grandparent’s house. The blue canvas cover is fraying at the edges, and multi-color threads in uneven stitches betray the loving hands which re-stitched the binding time and again. About halfway through the book there is a…
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I started 2016 off the way I start every January – full of drive and optimism with a carefully color-coded planner and a pile of books to read. I know I’m not unique in this, almost everyone I know becomes more ambitious, dedicated and idealistic as January 1 draws near. I went to Florida…
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I hated listening to people talk on the radio or recordings for a very long time. I blame my Mother’s love of listening to talk radio when I was a child. (Can’t we just listen to music please???) My husband, Ben, on the other hand, puts on a podcast whenever he’s doing any sort of…
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I’ve spent the last several years of my life purging closets and emptying drawers. Minimizing. Trying to use less water, less energy, less resources. Produce less garbage, and compost and recycle more. Just this past weekend, a bookshelf and two full bags of random old things were evicted from my home. Smaller impact. A simpler…
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Summer was long, y’all. And hard. And good. But mostly long and hard. Ben started a new job in December this past year, which meant this was the first summer of our married life that we could spend holiday weekends – like Memorial Day and the Fourth of July – sleeping in and grilling and…
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When Ben and I first drove up to Milwaukee from West Virginia six years ago, we missed one tiny split on the highway around Chicago – it was one small lane change. Unfamiliar with the landscape of the midwest, we drove for an hour before we realized we were getting deeper and deeper into rural…
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