Category: Religion
Reasonable Hope: Bright Spots When the Day is Dark
Maybe I read too much fantasy as a teenager, but my tendency is to make epics out of everything. Calamities are more interesting than your run-of-the-mill conundrums. The apocalypse is more exciting than roadblocks. Revolutions...
Do Not Lose Heart
This morning, the sun rose. A shadow fell against the wall, and we leapt, only to find it was our own. A final leaf clung to the mortal life of a scarred and limping bough....
Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings
A dear friend gave me a lovely letter and a homemade bookmark with a bead on it from when we were in Nairobi together. She writes things on the bookmark that I need to read—needed then,...
25 ways you can support refugees
A week ago, I published a post called “Do something” urging readers to not be passive in the shadow of modern refugeeism—a phenomenon that has displaced nearly 70 million people worldwide. To put it plainly, everyone...
Always returning
I’m back. A week ago, I stepped onto a plane from Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut and traveled back to the United States after a year away. There are a thousand stories to tell,...
Reading spiritual things unspiritually
Yesterday I read Francis Schaeffer. He was talking about living as people of faith in modernity, in a world allegedly disabused of believing in supernatural things in the aftermath of rationalism. I think Francis Schaeffer was...
Unexplainable
Newtown, Aurora, Charleston, San Bernardino, Fort Hood—now, Kalamazoo. It’s surreal to think that next time the president or a pastor laments forlornly over the not-so-little list of American gun tragedies, my hometown could be there. A...
Foodless
That we know of, Jesus only fasted once. He fasted after he was baptized in the Jordan, after water wrapped him up like a tomb, after a dove descended as if to say Peace itself...
‘We are limited, but by God we are unlimited.’
“The Church has always done charity work and must continue to do it,” said one of our hosts at the largest Orthodox compound in Cairo. “This bishopric, however, focuses its efforts specifically on the work...
I won’t be far
The way to do anything is to just do it; the way to get anywhere is to start moving your feet; and the way to change your life, and hopefully the lives of others, is...