Authenticity comes with a steep price in my family. I just found out that my Grand Aunt Ruth passed away. It happened a week ago today. I found out by chance while scrolling through Facebook. I immediately called my grandmother (Aunt Ruth’s little sister), who didn’t answer her cell phone. I called my mother. She answered. “Hi. Did you know Aunt Ruth died?” I asked. “Yes.” “And you didn’t call…
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2019
Gratitude for Noise
A Noise Warning I got a bit of a noise warning when Mom called me on Easter Sunday morning. This turn in my faith life has been hard on her, I think. “So you’re not going to church today?” she asked. “No, I’m not,” I confirmed. “Well, if you would just set aside all this noise and seek Jesus, He’ll come to you. I know that.” When we hung up,…
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Rachel Held Evans
Rachel Held Evans died yesterday. I can’t stop thinking about her. When Rachel’s books began releasing, I watched leaders in the evangelical community do what they do: throw stones at someone who dares to question long-held traditions and doctrine. (Andrew Walker, director of policy studies for the Southern Baptist’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called her writings, “…unbiblical and theologically dangerous.”) Rachel did it with a dose of humor and…
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The “Christian” Value of Righteousness Above Relationship (6-1)
This entry is from Week 6 of my Questioning Faith Journal, which I wrote during a year of allowing myself to question evangelical Christianity and my place in it. I have gone back and removed the woman’s real name from the entry as I’m not sure it serves a lasting positive purpose to name her. The point of my writing was that her choices starkly revealed a behavior/belief of my…
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A Life Lesson …from Paul the Woodpecker
I didn’t expect to get a life lesson from a woodpecker this morning. Most mornings after waking up and assembling some caffeine, I head out to the patio and sink into my red-cushioned wide chair to journal. On this very special morning, Paul the Woodpecker brought me a lesson. I have journaled for as long as I can remember – some of my junior high diaries are stored on the…
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