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1 Corinthians 4.10 : Helpful Reminder
Why should I care about looking foolish? I am foolish. Declare it my golden rule, to remember that, I mean. Otherwise, what slender chance to be glimpsed in others’ eyes? ——————————— Featured Image by Zanthia About Brett FosterBrett Foster is Associate Professor of English at Wheaton College. He is currently completing Elemental Rebel: The Rime of Cecco Angiolieri. A past Wallace Stegner and Elizabethan Club fellow, his poetry and criticism has appeared in Raritan, The
read moreGratitude & Postcard
If I could spend the day with you, walking down from Berkeley station like two bold missionaries’ sons toward your place on Miles Avenue, what a fine way to pass the hours! Let’s face it: only we can make such graceful pleas for vision’s sake to galvanize these hearts of ours. About Brett FosterBrett Foster is Associate Professor of English at Wheaton College. He is currently completing Elemental Rebel: The Rime of Cecco Angiolieri. A past Wallace Stegner and Elizabethan Club fellow, his poetry and criticism has appeared in Raritan, The
read moreFlutterby Grace
A small piece of Kelly Rae Roberts art to the left of my desk, entitled, “Listening to Grace:” A butterfly is perched on her cheek, close to the ear. The girl’s head is cocked to the side, listening, watching, as if the flitting wings are whispering secrets. Her expression is calm, her demeanor relaxed (butterflies rarely say anything juicy), yet she is unobtrusively sprouting her own small set of wings. I was never much interested in butterfly art—too girly, too frilly for my taste. However, I was recently told a butterfly used to be...
read moreThirty Million Faces
Last Sunday, as Lent began, thousands of churches around the globe celebrated Freedom Sunday, joining their voices to the growing movement to combat modern-day slavery. It doesn’t take much looking these days to come across mainstream articles about slavery. We see it on internet news sites. We see it in Christian magazines, on Christian blogs. And significantly, it doesn’t seem to matter whether the sources are, ahem, “liberal” or “conservative.” But what is modern-day slavery? Is it an eight-year-old picking cacao beans to make a...
read moreSearch, Love, Rescue
In October 2008, Ashley Waddell was praying one evening and God spoke to her to start a nonprofit organization to help an orphanage in Cali, Colombia that she had visited a couple times before. Ashley fell in love with the kids when she was there, and saw how many needs they had. The orphanage is called Fundación Paz y Libertad. The children there come from a neighborhood full of drugs, theft, prostitution, and abuse. On one occasion when Ashley’s friend Sarah, visited the neighborhood, she once saw kids sniffing glue to try to not...
read moreArt, Liturgy & Vulnerability
Editor’s Note: This past winter, Tim Snyder (executive editor) compiled a new liturgy—“Restless: An Evening Prayer for Restless Hearts”—and curated it’s early workshop performances at Humble Walk and Hope Lutheran Church—both in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Paul Soupiset (creative director) contributed original artwork for the liturgy. Recently the two sat down for an in-depth conversation about the liturgy, the art and how vulnerability plays out in the creative process. TS: This whole restless thing has been somewhere deep in my...
read moreThe Atmosphere of Change
Recently I posted a video of myself on Youtube for the first (and last) time. Within a few days, it had over five thousand views, which is nowhere close to “going viral,” but was sufficient enough to scare me. I know, it is only Youtube. People broadcast themselves on a daily basis. But it is Youtube, where anyone and everyone has access to my opinion and the freedom to comment. I had been attempting to respond to a viral Youtube video that I thought misrepresented the word “religion.” But suddenly I felt afraid because something I had...
read moreFind Something Better To Do
When you’re sitting in a room surrounded by men who are struggling alcoholics, reforming sex offenders, and repenting thugs, you suddenly stop caring about the mechanics of salvation, the details of the end times, or the latest sexist comment from a pastor in Seattle. When a guy comes to you and says, “I’m scared to death of leaving prison because I’m afraid I’ll just get back into drugs,” you don’t have time to argue about whether he believes in salvation through substitionary atonement or Christus Victor. You just want Jesus to...
read moreJoining God’s Lobbying Firm
An advocate is one who pleads on another person’s behalf. Additionally an advocate is defined as a person who publicly supports a particular cause or policy. In our 21st century American civic discourse, ‘lobbying’ and ‘activism’ sometimes seem like dirty words, summoning images of high-paid lobbyists with fistfuls of cash to buy off votes, or megaphoned fringe elements that turn over cars in the name of unrealistic and vague objectives. However, in the Bible, God has very different names for advocates: prophet and Jesus....
read more‘Not About Bombs’ Exhibit Review
Honestly, I don’t remember where I picked up the postcard but it caught my attention with its bright pink heading that read “Not About Bombs” so I stuffed it in my journal. Later when it fell out of my journal I knew had to see this latest exhibition from Intermedia Arts (Minneapolis, MN). The exhibit, curated by Tricia Khutoretsky, is entitled, Not About Bombs and features five Iraqi artists exploring identity in flux. The exhibit is somehow haunting, hopeful, provocative and yet peaceful—in a dynamic tension one would never want to...
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