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I Truly, Madly, Deeply Hate ‘Deeply’
I don’t use Heartlands to rant much, right? O yeah, there was that time. But, listen, there’s a new rhetorical bugaboo I need to brood about. I’m deeply concerned about ‘deeply.’ It’s not so much the adverb’s connection to words like ‘grateful’ and phrases like ‘I love you.’ It’s particularly problematic when it worms its →
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What You Can Learn from 3 Hilltops: West Bank Edition
Flagpole in Sebastia Sebastia On the highest point in Sebastia, where a Roman Temple, the Northern Kingdom’s palace, and innumerable pagan holy sites once stood, there is a ramshackle wooden flagpole sporting a small Palestinian flag. Or at least there was last week when I visited. Locals report that the flagpole is the frequent target →
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Come Write at The Porches with Alex
There’s still time to sign up for this great weekend workshop… →
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The Longoria’s BBQ: The Long-Awaited Heartlands Review
I was just getting ready to test out the brisket sausage when David Longoria sat down across the table from me as if we had known each other forever. It was a slow Saturday in Everman on the southern fringes of Fort Worth. The temperature hovered around 100 outside. Inside the small restaurant with the →
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The Soul of Place–Carson McCullers
“In the quiet, secret night she was by herself again. It was not late–yellow squares of light showed in the windows of the houses along the streets. She walked slow, with her hands in her pockets and her head to one side. For a long time she walked without noticing the direction. “Then the houses →
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Revisiting a Letter to My Haitian Neighbor (plus Ry Cooder!)
Maybe I was a little premature. When I saw my Haitian neighbor leaving town awhile back, I wrote a letter assuming that his departure meant we were going to see a more general exodus from town. I wrote the letter in frustration over the wretched condition of our immigration policies. The Haitian community on the →
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Letter to My Haitian Neighbor As You Leave Town
I saw you yesterday pulling on a frayed nylon cord to tie down the mattresses on the roof of your car. You’re leaving town and we never got to say ‘hello.’ I’ve seen you in the Food Lion and the Wal-mart and I’ve been tempted to try to speak. But my high school French, which →
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Come Write at The Porches with Alex
Do you like where Heartlands goes–exploring the places that make the world rich and miraculous? Would you like to develop that sense of place in your own writing? Then why not come to the first Heartlands writing weekend? Located at The Porches Writing Retreat, in beautiful, secluded Norwood, Virginia–a site featured in a 2017 Heartlands →
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Rebelling Against King Jesus
Originally posted on think and let think: This week on the Strangely Warmed podcast I speak with Alex Joyner about the readings for the Day of Pentecost – Year B (Acts 2.1-21, Psalm 104.24-35b, Romans 8.22-27, John 15.26-17, 16.4b-15). Alex is the District Superintendent for the Eastern Shore in the Virginia Conference, and he regularly blogs on… →
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Absence Makes the Heart: A Jerusalem Reflection
On Easter Sunday…some thoughts from my first visit to Jerusalem in 2011… I would say that the world is a hopeless place…except it’s not. Somewhere around here – at the Garden Tomb, under a church – there’s an empty tomb to prove it. It’s what we have to offer this place – emptiness. Absence. If →
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