To the Class of 2019

​​I’ve been teaching Sunday school to fourth through sixth graders for seven years now. The first kids I taught are graduating from high school this spring. Perhaps they won’t be thrust out into the world this week as they leave the auditorium, but by fall they will be more or less “on their own.”

​It’s a pretty scary world between #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter and threats of economic collapse from trade wars and the fear of war in the Middle East. My kids come from sheltered homes with loving parents and a supportive community. What will they make of that broader world?
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When Research Hits Home

My current WIP (work in progress) is about anger with God from the standpoint of a Bethlehem woman who loses her child in Herod’s massacre of the innocents. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about first-century Palestine, and having fun tracking down connections and the impact of the historical context on my characters. I am also on the lookout for books that deal with my theme. The first one I turned to was Philip Yancy’s Disappointment with God.

It’s a book worth multiple readings.

What if Noticing Race Isn't Bad?

​​I just finished reading a book called White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. It’s about how hard it is to talk about race in our society, but if we don’t talk about it, we can never overcome the divisions that keep us apart. DiAngelo is white and addresses us whites to tell us that “colorblind” is not good enough, because it makes us blind to the challenges that our neighbors of color face. If we are blind to the problem, we have no hope of fixing it. The truth is that the white viewpoint is not the authoritative definition of reality even though in our society dominated by whites, it may seem so. 

A Literary Kick in the Gut

  ​From time to time I have the opportunity to participate in the creation of quality Christian literature by being a beta reader for a colleague or editing for a client. One such book was Cradle Snatchers, the latest in British author Henry Brooks’ Will Houston mystery series and definitely his best so far. Brooks is an enthusiastic young father with seemingly boundless energy and creativity. He has a sharp mind and is eager to use story to communicate ideas he feels very passionate about. I’m usually pretty impatient with agenda-driven fiction even when I agree with the agenda, but in Cradle Snatchers Brooks has given us fast-paced action and laugh-out-loud characters that slam home his human-life agenda with gut-punching force.

Meeting God at the Shack

​I resisted reading this when it first came out in 2007 and everyone was talking about it. It was very controversial (God as a black female?!) and I heard it wasn’t all that well written. But I found it well worth reading and forgave the didacticism and occasional purple prose for the stimulating way it dealt with ideas. (The plot works way better than The Case for Christ, which, despite agreeing with the conclusions, I didn’t like at all.)

 

Stretching My Mind on the Elliptical

I am always being stretched by the technology out there. At the moment I am learning to access podcasts. I can listen on my phone while walking on the treadmill or elliptical at the club down the road and distract myself from my body’s complaints about the distance or speed—not that either of those is the least bit impressive to anyone who isn’t used to spending her day in front of a computer.

 
The two “channels” that have motivated me to figure this out are Quick to Listen from Christianity Today Magazine and Rewrite Radio from Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing.
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Christmas Bells

 

​​I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
 
I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
 
Christmas joy. That’s what this time of year is about, isn’t it?