The Trouble With Daffodils — and My Writing
The trouble with daffodils is they have no subtext. They are all cheer and sparkle and optimism. They are avatars of perky. They get on my nerves. Read more.
Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder – But What If There’s No Beholder?
A flowering tree grows hidden in the canyon below our house. If no one sees it bloom, is it beautiful? Without a beholder, can there be beauty? Read more.
A Case of the Human Condition: The Center of the Universe? It’s a Little Beach in Michigan, of Course
If I were drawing a map of the world, its center would be the little beach in Michigan where the Bass Lake outlet flows into the great, blue Lake Michigan. Read more.
A Case of the Human Condition: Build a Wind Farm — Wreck Lake Michigan
I saw the map and burst into tears. It broke my heart. Windmills, a hundred square miles of them, are being proposed for Lake Michigan – a couple miles off shore. In the lake. Beautiful, serene, life-giving Lake Michigan. Read more.
Theologian Harvey Cox: You Don’t Have to Believe to Be a Christian
I’d like to recommend Harvey Cox’s newest book to all my non-believer friends. So many of the sophisticated, highly educated people I know labor under the assumption that they have to believe – to assent intellectually to – the factuality of traditional Christian teaching. They don’t. And here’s why: The idea of a fixed creed to which a true Christian must subscribe dates back, not to the life of Jesus, but to the emperor Constantine. Read more.
GodsBigBlog: I’m Off to a Religion Newswriters Conference
I’m off to a Religion Newswriters Association conference in Minneapolis. Religion and the Obama administration, religion and immigration, and The Case of the Disappearing Hymnal will be among the topics. See you when I get back!
GodsBigBlog: Does a Teacher Have the Right to Wear a Muslim Headscarf? A Nun’s Habit? A Sikh’s Turban? Not in Every State
Three states still have laws on the books prohibiting public school teachers from wearing religious garments in the classroom.
A Case of the Human Condition: Flowers Bursting From the Dirt — How Do They Do It?
They emerge from mud, manure, leaf rot, earthworms, sow bugs. And they are beautiful. How do they do it? Read more.
A Case of the Human Condition: In Your Face Orchids
Stupendously, outrageously beautiful orchids. Read more.
Book Openers: I Still Haven’t Figured Out How to Pray — But I’m in Good Company
“I am a failure at prayer,” author Barbara Brown Taylor confesses . . . Now there’s a woman after my own heart.