In Gennesaret

Fortunately, I’ve been pretty busy and preoccupied with the task of moving my youngest out of state this weekend. I haven’t been able to spend inordinate amounts of time watching the news after Roe was overturned and scouring Facebook for all my friends’ reactions. But the little bit of each that I have seen has depressed me. No, that’s mild. At moments, it has absolutely enraged me. And it enraged me to the point that I got out my laptop in the hotel room this morning to type out my response . . . we’ll see if I end up having the courage to post it. Let me start with my pro-choice friends. I understand your grief. Really, I do. But please hear me out, people. There are legitimate, honest, Christ-honoring reasons to be against abortion that have nothing to do with trying to control women and take away their reproductive rights . Nothing. NOTHING to do with that. Maybe your views on this issue have been informed by significant pain and trauma in your life – that’s understandable, an...

Juneteenth is a national holiday now, and that’s pretty cool. Because I was travelling, I didn’t have occasion to be involved in any celebrations, but I can see myself wanting to do that in future years. Particularly after a remark I heard while eating breakfast in the hotel on Monday. The local news station was talking about the local celebration the day before and included an excerpt from an interview with the woman in charge of the event. She gave a brief description of the origin of the holiday: it marks the day in 1865 that U.S. troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and informed the slaves there about the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed them from slavery. But the remark that grabbed me was that the slaves had actually already been free for two years – it’s just that nobody had told them they were free. They were free already. But they didn’t know it. Can you imagine that moment? Finding out that you’ve been walking around carrying figurative chains that ...

 My youngest and I attended services last Sunday at a rockin’ loud megachurch in an Atlanta suburb. (And there’s a story behind that – for another day.) Many things to commend in that place . . . other things we questioned . . . and lots of things that were simply not for us. But at the very least, the sermon succeeded in sparking some meaningful conversation between us. (May I add a side note about how awesome it is to have reached a stage where I can have meaningful, insightful, and challenging spiritual conversations with my daughters? Despite all my mothering mistakes . . . God is good, y’all.) Specifically, we ended up talking about some of the things I wrote in my last blog post. The conviction we both feel about drawing people to Jesus, but having no idea how to effectively do that. Invite them to church? Not likely. For a handful of people, that may be a good idea, but really only for people who are already on a path searching for God, and there aren’t a lot of those ar...