Parker Palmer Poetry and humor Once again, Abraham Lincoln offers a case in point. His life was laced with the stress that comes from being hounded by darkness; high anxiety and high blood pressure are…
Diana Butler Bass “Grateful athletes are more satisfied with their team and overall lives.” In a recent academic study, Professor Lung Hung Cheng discovered that athletes with a strong sense of gratitude had a higher sense of personal well-being and team satisfaction: “Grateful athletes…
Uncategorized Has the pandemic prepared us for pilgrimages? by Wes Granberg-Michaelson https://www.christiancentury.org/article/reflection/has-pandemic-prepared-us-pilgrimages
Parker Palmer We must hold divisions and contradictions with compassion I discovered a book that helped me understand how heartbreak and depression - two of the most isolating and disabling experiences I know - can expand one’s sense of connectedness…
Parker Palmer We must find ways to bridge our differences If we want to “create a politics worthy of the human spirit,” we must find ways to bridge our differences, whether they are defined by age, gender, class, race, ethnicity,…
Uncategorized Faith is positive Faith is positive. It hopes for something. It looks to the future and imagines something better. In a perfect world, everyone wins. The gospel has a universal message: “God so…
Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons Why I’m going to church for Easter by Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/03/opinions/easter-jesus-gallup-poll-church-decline-graves-fitzsimmons/index.html
Maya Angelou, Uncategorized Home From “Letter to My Daughter” by Maya Angelou I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but from the age of three I grew up in Stamps, Arkansas, with my…
Shane Claiborne Easter Encouragement for the Spiritually Homeless by Rachel Ophoff https://www.redletterchristians.org/easter-encouragement-for-the-spiritually-homeless/
Brian McLaren Spirit Today’s guest quote is by Brian D. McLaren, from Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: “Pentecostalism in its first dynamic century has helped us see (among…
Diana Butler Bass For the first time in two months, I felt grateful. Jesus blessed history’s losers. No wonder people all those years ago had listened. No wonder they remembered and wrote it down. No wonder it is still so powerful two millennia…
Uncategorized Drop by J. Dana Trent in The Christian Century https://jdanatrent.com/2021/03/drop-christian-century-essay-content-winner/
Uncategorized Cancer and COVID and Lessons in Denial By Jeff Munroe https://reformedjournal.com/cancer-and-covid-and-lessons-in-denial/
Brian McLaren Secular Today’s guest quote is by Brian D. McLaren, from Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road?: “What we call the secular is actually the realm or domain…
Diana Butler Bass Gratitude covenants Communal gratitude cannot—and should not—be compulsory. Forcing gratitude, especially when required by those in positions of power, is another way of placating authoritarian egos or asserting control in hierarchical systems.…
Jana Riess On Joss Whedon, cancel culture, and the Bible I won’t be torching my Harry Potter books or throwing my Buffy DVDs on a bonfire. I’d have to throw my Bible to the flames as well. by Jana Riess…
Diana Butler Bass Zacchaeus Zacchaeus thought that gratitude was a political structure of benefactors and beneficiaries that he could manipulate for his own benefit. Then Jesus called him down from that tree and invited…
Diana Butler Bass “Play unplugged my fear” It turns out that play and gratitude are linked. Mary Beth Sammons, coauthor of The Grateful Life, recalls how she struggled as her father and mother passed away—not quickly—but over…
Brian McLaren Questioning Paradigms and dogma can be defended and enforced with guns and prisons, bullets and bonfires, threats and humiliations, fatwas and excommunications. But paradigms and dogma remain profoundly vulnerable with anomalies…
Uncategorized 2021 Black History Month Recommendations for the Whole Family by Dominique Dubois Gilliard https://christiansforsocialaction.org/resource/2021-black-history-month-recommendations-for-the-whole-family/
Mark Feldmeir Homesickness – the longing for home. Frederick Buechner points out that the word “longing” comes from the same root as the word “long,” in the sense of length and time, as in, “it’s a long line,”…
