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Merch — Plugging My Latest Publication
Happy to say that I got to write the Leader’s Guide for Adam Hamilton’s latest book, Unafraid: Living With Courage and Hope in Uncertain Times. Available now on Cokesbury. →
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Who’s Fighting For Democracy These Days?
Let’s talk politics. I don’t do this much on the blog, because it’s a toxic substance and has to be handled with care. But there’s no doubt that Heartlands had its origin in concerns about the political direction of the country. And there is no way to talk about these strange days of rural America… →
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The Tale the Blowflies Tell: A Review of The Dry by Jane Harper
It begins with the blowflies, as good a symbol as any for what happens to rural areas when the weather turns stagnant, hot, and deadly. They know the smell of death and where to find it. So it’s an ominous sign when these end-time harbingers descend upon a small farm in the Australian bush outside… →
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Spring and A Way Forward
You’ve heard it before in a thousand different forms: change is hard. In churches it can often come as a variant of the old stock phrase: We’ve never done it that way before. Even when we take the first steps of a journey toward something new, it’s easy to give up when the going gets… →
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Tinder Mercies – Poetry
‘But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn’t flint is tinder and the whole world sparks and flames.’ —Annie Dillard, ‘On foot in Virginia’s Roanoke Valley’ ‘I have found the dominant of my range and state— Love, O my God, to call thee Love and Love’ —Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘Let Me Be to… →
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Why We Can’t Live Without Horseshoe Crabs
So let me tell you how I think with animals. I see an animal…say, the harbor seal I encountered once while running down a deserted barrier island…I stop dead in my tracks. Pull out my phone to take a picture…(natch)…and then time slows down. I’m aware of the wind, the sun’s position in the sky,… →
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Adapting Worship without Climbing Trees
After this many years in worship and as a worship leader, I’ve seen just about everything. Sung prayers in a cathedral choir? Check. Pentecostal healing service in a South Carolina swamp? Check. Taizé? Check. Cowboy Church? Check. Blue jeans and guitars? Check. Radio show a la Prairie Home Companion? Check. In a tree? Check. I… →
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Waltzing (and Futzing) Across Texas: A review of Texas Blood
If you pick up this book you won’t know where you’re headed. Texas, sure. After all the title of Roger D. Hodge’s book is Texas Blood: Seven Generations Among the Outlaws, Ranchers, Indians, Missionaries, Soldiers, and Smugglers of the Borderlands. And there are maps in the first chapter that will whet your appetite for West… →
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Praying with Fire: A Review of Jamie Quatro’s Fire Sermon
“Dear God: Can you forgive someone for an act they cannot repent of?” (26) So goes Maggie’s prayer journal in the aftermath of an affair in Jamie Quatro’s new novel, Fire Sermon. Maggie has committed to move on. Has cut off communication with the poet she spent one night with in Chicago. In one light,… →
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Doing Construction Poorly (A Memoir of Campus Ministry)
It’s Spring Break time for a lot of college students in the next few weeks and around this time of year my thoughts turn to doing construction work poorly. That’s how I spent my Spring Breaks for seven years as a campus minister—taking my willing hands and severely limited construction know-how to diverse places in… →
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