I’m done with easy-to-swallow Christian catch phrases. You know the ones: God is good all the time. If he brought you to it, he’ll bring you through it. Let go, and let God. Only God knows—he’s in control. These statements aren’t necessarily false, but they don’t capture the whole story, either. They often represent a…
Have you ever been to a foreign country and were truly unable to communicate? I remember trying to figure out the Paris Metro when I was there for a brief visit during college. While many people in Paris speak English, I couldn’t find an English speaker at the stop where I was. I was feeling…
My history with the church is a bit complicated. I was raised Lutheran and attended church faithfully for most of my childhood. In high school, though, waitressing on Sunday mornings took precedence, and my church attendance transitioned to more of a Christmas and Easter model. After many years, I began searching again and initially found…
I never thought I’d find myself in liturgy. I was raised in the Church of Christ in Texas in the 1990s. My father was raised Episcopalian in Texas in the 1960s, only because there happened to be an Episcopal church across the street from his house. My father’s father was raised Swiss Mennonite in Kansas…
There’s a concept in mathematics known as fractals. Without getting too far into the weeds with a definition, fractals are self-repeating patterns. Imagine a picture of hundreds of triangles within triangles. Zoom in one aspect of the triangle, and you find the same pattern as the larger picture; the repeating pattern allows you to zoom…
“I believe in . . . the holy catholic Church,” states the centuries-old Apostles’ Creed, or, if you’re a Lutheran, “I believe in . . . the holy Christian church.” In the creed, “catholic” means universal, as in the whole, global church that confesses its belief in Christian doctrine. The origins of the creed can be…