Media mogul Ted Turner allegedly once commented, “Life is a game. Money is how we keep score.” Whether Mr. Turner really said that or not, he raises a good point. More than a convenient way of conducting economic transactions, money also offers one of the few objective, countable measures for keeping track of our overall […]
Strong strides, swinging arms, tired-yet-powerful legs propelling myself forward — this is how I imagined myself finishing my first marathon. Imagining how my marathon would go was a strategy I’d used in races before, along with repeating phrases like “I am strong!” when experiencing pain. Coupled together, these strategies are meant to help runners cope […]
1. Kicking off this week we take a bit of a deep dive into all the Jesus articles that appeared over the holiday season, which featured no small amount of controversy. On Christmas Eve, Peter Wehner wrote in the New York Times of “The Forgotten Radicalism of Jesus,” assembling a variety of gospel narratives to argue […]
Following the wisdom of Alan Jacobs’ recent book, perhaps the best way to understand the present moment (whatever that may be) is to read older books. Which is at least a partial explanation for posting this fantastic quote by the atheist philosopher Alain de Botton, from his book Status Anxiety. Published in 2004, this probably […]
This post comes to us from Will Ryan: Once when I served as a youth minister during seminary, the church received a phone call from the county sheriff’s office. I was the only one in the building, so I answered it. The deputy on the phone detailed a situation. They were called to make a […]
Movies about addiction usually focus on the challenges of turning from substance use to recovery. But in Sound of Metal, Director Darius Marder focuses on what happens when the foundation of recovery comes crashing down. The film follows Ruben, a drummer in a tandem rock group with his girlfriend Lou. For Ruben and Lou, their […]
Every man is important if he loses his life; and every man is funny if he loses his hat and has to run after it. — G. K. Chesterton Humor, as we like to say, is one of the minor fruits of the Spirit. It is, as Kierkegaard said, “the joy which has overcome the […]
I remember downtown Buffalo, silent, in the evening, sometime in 1972, before church bells fully and loudly tolled the end of the Vietnam War. I remember my parents telling us of postponed Christmas Parties in the heat of August 1945 after VJ Day. I know how we felt at the end of pregnancies, the graduations […]
For most of my life, everything I knew about Lent had been learned in the Catholic school cafeteria: give something up for forty days and make sure to tell your friends. The best way to conquer Lent was to choose something that didn’t really matter that much to you so it wasn’t a real chore […]
When you hear claims of deity, debatable locations of tombs or bodies and the title “King of Kings,” you usually think of Jesus. Certainly, if you come from an evangelical persuasion. But before Jesus there was another king of kings, one who claimed to be the child of God. One who claimed he had all […]
Have you ever had a challenging season or circumstance you just can’t seem to shake? Somehow it seems to impact you in small or big ways far longer than you ever thought possible? Yeah, me too. I’ve had a few of those and was chatting with the Lord about one recently. He shared an interesting […]
I used to love New Year’s resolutions. Are you kidding me? I grew up in a Southern church! I’d compose a list of them the week after Christmas and shove it into whichever version of the Evangelical Teen Guided Quiet Time Devotional Notebook was popular in my youth group that year, certain that within days […]
