In Gennesaret

My 7 th graders just finished reading Around the World in Eighty Days . If you’re not familiar with this classic, it takes place in 1872; a man and his servant are trying to prove that transportation technology has advanced to the point that they can circle the globe in eighty days (as you probably inferred from the title). While we discussed a certain snag the protagonist had encountered, one of my students said, “Well, why doesn’t he just tell the people in London what’s going on?” We had to remind him that this is 1872; he can’t just text somebody on the other side of the world and get a response in a couple minutes. My word, people – the way our communication systems have advanced! Phileas Fogg had snail mail and telegraphs. That’s about it. We’ve got mail, fax, telephones, texts, email, social media messaging, video chats . . . it’s almost ridiculous. And it’s sometimes a pain in the butt. When I need to get a quick answer from someone about something, I have to first consi...

Dear Christian-cinema-disparaging friend (please hear this with love), I don’t care if you like the movie The Jesus Revolution or not. Honestly. Couldn’t care less. Personally, I loved it. But, you know . . . whatever. I do care if you are criticizing the movie without having ever seen it. That’s a cheap shot. I highly suggest everyone reading this go see the movie. Judge it and its message for yourself. Many of you, my disapproving friends, won’t go because you refuse to spend your money financially supporting an endeavor you oppose. Okay. For the record, understand that your incessant critique of the movie intrigued me and ultimately made me want to see it – and now I’m recommending it to everyone I know. So, I’m afraid you ended up contributing to its financial success anyway. Just sayin’. That said, I need to be honest with you that I’m getting fed up with some of the critique. I’m really tired of hearing that the movie is unchristian – “anti-gospel”, even. I’m tired of h...

It's called Velcro Weed, Holly tells me. I put the picture out on Facebook, asking the hive mind, "Do I want this growing in my yard or not? I mean, real grass is not happening . . . Is this an acceptable green substitute?" The consensus was, NO , it is not. I even had a couple people give me the HaHa emoji at the very thought. "It's a menace," Diana affirmed. She said I need to take it out, "and I recommend you wear gloves if you have them." A fit warning because there's a reason it's called Velcro Weed. Super sticky stuff. "You can make a tea out of it that has a lot of vitamin C," Holly further informed me. Velcro Weed Tea? Um . . . no. Thank you. A couple weeks after I moved into this rental, I met the previous tenants who were visiting a neighbor across the street. My lawn had not been watered for two or three months in a miserably hot drought of a summer when I moved in, and everything was dry and quite dead-looking. I asked...

Yesterday’s Sunday School lesson and sermon were about daily bread. Which is appropriate because the biblical narrative is all about FOOD, of course. Do you doubt? Consider:      When God first creates people, he gives them two things: work to do and food to eat .      How did the fall happen? Eve wanted fruit that God forbade.      Jesus’ first temptation? To turn stones into bread .      One of Jesus’ metaphors for himself: the Bread of Life.      The Lord’s Prayer tells us to ask God for . . . our daily bread . (Definitely a carb theme happening here.)      How do we remember Jesus? Through Communion – eating bread and drinking wine . (Carbs and alcohol . . .)      And how is this all supposed to end? What comes at the end of time? The marriage supper of the Lamb. The biblical evidence is clear, people. Eating is HOLY. Let’s make it a spiritual discipline. It’s...

The year and a half after my youngest was born, I – like many women – suffered from post-partum depression. The weekends were always the worst, particularly Sundays. I drug myself through the weekdays thinking, “Hubby will be home over the weekend. The weekend will be easier. I can’t wait for the weekend when he’ll be home and everything will be easier.” Then the weekend would come. He would be home. And nothing was easier. One Sunday afternoon, I was upstairs in my bedroom having an emotional meltdown. I don’t know what triggered it – it could have been anything or everything or nothing. But I was lying on the floor, my body wracked with sobs I was trying to keep silent so my family wouldn’t hear me. I had already locked the bedroom door; I was afraid my husband would come in and see me in this state and have no idea what to do with this slobbering mess of a woman. Maybe he would finally just give up on me altogether. But for some reason that particular horrible afternoon, I gradu...

Unless you’re a parent of littles at the age where you're teaching them the basic Bible stories we all deem essential (bless your hearts, my exhausted friends) or you’re of the crowd that is really concerned with the question of evolution vs. creation (and I have many friends in that crowd, too), you may not have given much thought to the first three chapters of Genesis in a while. My Sunday School class discussed them yesterday morning. Our “quarterly”, which I read ahead of time to prepare for the lesson, encouraged us to re-read the story of the Creation and Fall with fresh grown-up eyes and with a Lenten focus: is there a sacrifice you need to make? A sin you need to grieve and repent of? An unproductive habit you need to abstain from? And I found one. So, the Garden of Eden was, of course, full of fruitful trees, and God gave Adam and Eve permission to partake of the abundance and enjoy it to the full . . . except for that one tree . Just one. So many blessings in that g...

The lost sheep and the lost coin in Luke 15: these are old news stories for a born-and-raised-Baptist girl like me. I've read them a few hundred times . . . heard them a few hundred times . . . probably even taught them -- well, less than a hundred times, but still a lot. Old news. Except that scripture is alive and active and sharp as the dickens, slicing you open right to where reparative surgery needs to be done in your spirit and heart and mind. I think it was in Sunday School a while back that these stories came up again. And as he is wont to do, God pointed out to me (probably through Jeni or Ray, our teachers, because that’s usually how he does things) something I hadn’t really noticed before. I’ve always read these stories as God seeking out the lost – that is, those who don’t know him yet. Unbelievers. God willing to go to extremes to find them and make them his. Bring that sheep into the fold. Add that coin to the precious stash. Except here’s the thing: that shee...