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So, what do you want?

The last couple days Abbie and I have asked this question to each other as Christmas approaches. This is not the first time the question has come up this season. We’ve already passed around some lists with family members to prepare for gift exchanges. I imagine this is a fairly common question these days. In buying for our kids, we have tried to mitigate the potential insanity of the season by being guided and limited by a phrase Abbie discovered a few years back:

Something they want,

something they need,

...

Joyfully Unafraid

Two weekends ago, Joel and I both had the opportunity to be a part of Fabulous, Fierce, and Sacred: A Gathering of Anabaptist lgbtqa* Community in Chicago, and I wanted to take some time to reflect on that experience. For those that don’t know, the conference was planned by various groups within the Mennonite Church who are all working in their own ways to make the denomination a safer, more welcoming and inclusive place for people of gender of sexual minorities. The...

Gratitude/Advent

On this Eve of Thanksgiving I’m grateful to be surrounded by love, and grateful for the opportunity to journey with you all through the seasons of life.

Thanksgiving weekend has become the major get together for my side of the family and we will be heading out to Bellefontaine tomorrow and arriving back to Columbus for Sunday worship.

Speaking of which…we are entering the season of Advent. When the planning group got together we settled on a single word to guide us through the season: Disruption. It shows up in the texts in different ways, which lead to the ultimate...

No fear in love

Greetings from Bluffton, Ohio. This week I am the speaker for Spiritual Life Week at Bluffton University which also comes with the perk of getting to hang out with various students, faculty, and staff. The theme for the week, which we chose way back in the summer, is “No fear in love,” that delightful short phrase drawn from 1 John 4 which says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect loves drives out fear.” This was one of our Twelve Scriptures passages and it felt like one that had a lot more depth to explore. Much more than just occasional emotions, fear and love are like two...

1491

I just completed reading (listening to, audio-book) 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann (thanks for the loan Phil H). One of the best things this book does is to question, and more often dismantle, commonly held myths about the Americas and the people who lived here before European contact. Mann utilizes both the latest archeological and genetic findings, along with the earliest European accounts of contact with Indian peoples. Although the details continue to be up for debate, there is an emerging scholarly consensus that the pre-1492...

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