Friday, June 29, 2012

Gollum and Me


The first DVD my husband and I ever bought was The Lord of the Rings extended version, boxed set. I listen to the audio-book at least once a year (usually starting with The Hobbit and moving on through the trilogy). I have the soundtrack music to all three films on my ipod. The other day at the ice rink “Gollum’s Song” from the ending of the second movie, The Two Towers, came on. You may remember that Andy Serkis, the actor who voiced Gollum, won awards for his role that became far more than a voice-over of a computer-generated character.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Obsessive-Compulsive for Fun and Profit


 Proofreading is a job for obsessive-compulsive perfectionists. Is there a period at the end of the sentence? Is the apostrophe in the right place? Is this word spelled correctly? Okay. I admit it. I am one—an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist, that is.

I’m not known for my spelling. (Well, actually, I am, but not in a good way.) So I’m grateful for spell-check that highlights the words I need to be concerned with. Of course, if the manuscript says “there” where it should say “their” or “cloth” where it should say “clothe,” spell-check is no help.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Counting Blessings All the Way to a Thousand


I don’t usually go for coffee table books. My coffee table is for practical things like my tea mug and the book I am currently reading. I don’t believe in dusting around decorations. But when I attended the Zondervan reception at Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing (ages ago, it seems, before I became a grandmother again), I was given a copy of their new release, Selections from One Thousand Gifts; Finding Joy in What Really Matters.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Looking at History with Christian Eyes


A natural extension of my Africa picture book collection has been picture books that show African-American culture, especial religious life. (This passion has no doubt been encouraged by our relationships with brothers and sisters at Solid Word Bible Church in Indianapolis.) Besides picking up Under the Baobab Tree at Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing last month, I bought The Beatitudes by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Tim Ladwig. 

Friday, May 4, 2012

Africa in a Child's Eyes


 I brought home several new books from Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing a couple weeks ago. I have collected beautiful picture books since I worked in a Logos Bookstore children’s department when I was first married, long before my own kids. My children remember the antique glass cupboard with books that we looked at together, turning the pages carefully with clean hands. In recent years I have focused on books that represent Africa in a positive way.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Hungry for Justice


I started crying in the reaping scene, and nearly lost it in the riots. I think I got my cardio-vascular workout from the pounding of my heart through the whole thing. My husband doesn’t want to see the rest of the series when it comes out; it made him too angry—angry at injustice, angry at frivolous disregard for another person’s pain, angry at sin.

I’m talking about The Hunger Games. Don’t let the lines of teenagers outside put you off; this is NOT The Twilight Saga or Harry Potter. It is no sappy love story, and it wrestles with issues much closer to our everyday lives than a fantasy allegory.

Friday, March 23, 2012

For All the Saints


 I woke this morning with this hymn going through my head. It’s an old favorite going back to the summer at Cedar Campus in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when I met my husband. Cedar Campus is an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship training camp and mostly we sang from the organization’s Hymns, a collection I knew so well from family devotions that I could tell you number 27, number 36 or, my favorite, number 55, without looking. But that summer we also sang from a British hymnal, Christian Praise and “For All the Saints” became our theme song.

It has a lot of verses. Eight, to be precise. But oh, how exhilarating sung to the tune by Ralph Vaughn Williams. I have told my husband that I want this sung at my funeral. (Never too early to start thinking about what you want to be remembered for.)

“Eight verses?” he asked doubtfully.

“You can sing four at the beginning and four at the end,” I replied. “But don’t skip any.”

I don’t expect to die any time soon, but I share these words with you to motivate your living this week. Think about all the lovers of Jesus who have gone before us for two thousand years. Think about what God did for them across the ages, and what he can do for you today. Remember the unity that Jesus prayed for them and for us on the night he was betrayed. And when you are tempted to think the struggle against that old sin nature is more than you can handle, fix your eyes on the awesome finale of this story: men and women of every tongue and nation, streaming through the gates of heaven—you among them!—bowing before the Lord of all, Savior of your soul, the King of Glory. 

Take a deep breath and remember: It’s worth it.


Of Popes, Past and Future

  Jorge Mario Bergoglio has long been on my prayer list with a handful of other Christian voices, some of which I agree with, some not. But ...