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Stateless People
Up on Ministry Matters…my essay on the Rohingya and Christian thinking about statelessness: http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/8471/stateless-people?spMailingID=814690&spUserID=Mzk4Njg5MDI2S0&spJobID=400348494&spReportId=NDAwMzQ4NDk0S0 →
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The Texture of a Passing World
Up on the Street Light blog today is my latest travelogue – a thumbnail sketch of Quanah Parker’s Star House and an old Oklahoma amusement park: https://streetlightmag.com/2017/10/16/texture-of-a-passing-world/ For more on Street Light and its editor, Trudy Hale, check out my earlier interview with her here. →
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Finding God in a Small Town: A Review of Can You See Anything Now?
You could hardly imagine two more different artists than the ones you meet in the opening pages of Katherine James’s debut novel, Can You See Anything Now? [Paraclete, 2017]. There’s Margie, who paints vivid canvases, attributing personal characteristics to still lifes, sketching nudes, and doing a grand scale work featuring ovens that make her daughter… →
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Taking Hospitality Out of the House (& Keeping Worship Weird)
Preachers are fond of quoting Annie Dillard’s devastating critique of worship as she experienced it in a traditional church: On the whole, I do not find Christians outside of the catacombs sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no… →
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Coming Off Leave(s)
Leaves don’t so much change color in the fall as they become what they’ve always been. The chlorophyll that gives all deciduous trees their summer uniform of green begins to break down in the cooling days of autumn. The carotenoids in the leaves remain, lending trees their brilliant yellows and oranges. Those colors have always… →
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The Destabilizing Doors of Exit West: A Review
Reading Mohsin Hamid’s acclaimed new novel, Exit West, as a window on the current global migration crisis is a mistake. The world imagined by the Pakistani-born Hamid is not one facing a migration issue – migration is the environment in which all its characters swim. It’s not a problem to be addressed; it is in… →
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Fake Candles at the Tomb: A Holy Land Reflection
We’d all like a Holy Land made in our own image. I’ve just spent two weeks in Israel and Palestine and there are a few things I’d change. Yes, ending the occupation and a two-state solution are on the list. (More on that to come.) But, less grandly, how about the simplicity of a church… →
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Rural Soul: Evolution of a Liberal, Guest Blogger – Sara Keeling
I’m traveling back from Israel & Palestine Monday, but not before the Rev. Sara Porter Keeling continues her guest hosting with a post on anthropology, theology, and the continuing journey of discerning the Word. Many thanks to Sara for bringing her rural soul to Heartlands while I’ve been away… Does loving our neighbors look like… →
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Rural Soul: Confession – Guest Blogger Sara Keeling
The Rev. Sara Porter Keeling continues as guest host this week, while I am in Israel & Palestine. Today: a confessional look at the journey of call. I started a blog in 2003. Blogging—was THE social media platform of its time—we were a few years away from facebook, twitter was still confusing, and instagram… →
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