living in light of eternity
One of my dear friends asked me recently for a Christmas reading that her church could use. Instead of a grand Christmas tea or event, their members are receiving a goodie bag to help them host mini-Christmas parties in their own homes. I think it is a beautiful idea, because it deconstructs the creeping notion... Continue Reading →
This week I had the bittersweet pleasure of finishing a wonderful book. I’d read it slowly, savoring it in morsels, and it has taken up space on my bedside table for many moons. But I was near the end, and, having had a rather bad day, gave in to the guilty delight of finishing it... Continue Reading →
Last weekend we decided to drive east instead of west. About two and a half hours' drive are the Pawnee Buttes, rising up out of the flat plains like giant, misplaced sand castles. To get there, you have to hold your nose through dairy towns and take care to stop at one last outpost of... Continue Reading →
“O holy night, the stars are brightly shining…” Sometimes a moment is so powerful that a hush falls over the crowd. Sometimes a whole throng of people turns, as one body, to stareslack-jawed at the sky. Christmas is such a moment. It’s a simple story, quickly sketched in just 3 chapters of Matthew and Luke—147... Continue Reading →
Lately I've been wondering: How does God speak? How does God speak to you? Does He speak the same way to everyone? Did He speak the same way to everyone in days of old? Is Scripture the only way God speaks? How can God speak through Scripture when it’s not in front of us? If we... Continue Reading →
In the waiting, do you lose heart? God is not dead, nor does he sleep. The hiddenness of God does not indicate his absence, his apathy, or even his inaction, just our own blindness. We can't see God or his host of angels any more than we can see electrons whirling around in our fingertip.... Continue Reading →
I live with my family in an impoverished sector of the sprawling Denver metro area. In 1995, I spent a summer here, my first summer immersed in inner-city life, inner-city ministry. I lived with 17 other college students on old mattresses in the dusty back rooms of an urban church, housed in what had been... Continue Reading →
Catherine's Letters 