• Hope in Suffering

    Mourning the Loss of Relationships …

    Carolyn McCulley has recommended a book that I really want to read. (But oh! I’m trying SO hard to not indulge in my book lovin’ habit in 2011. Our budget simply cannot allow it. I must must must get used to libraries and lists and waiting!): The Undistracted Widow — Living for God after Losing Your Husband While directed, obviously, at widows, Carolyn has a recent blog post up that explains how really, the biblical truths are applicable to any person who has felt deep loss re: relationships (friendships, romantic relationships, parent/child relationships). I am thinking of it in particular for one dear friend who is facing debilitating, degenerative struggles…

  • Uncategorized

    Adopt Rinah

    I love adoption stories! I love adoption. Spiritual. Physical. A place to be wanted. A forever family. Yesterday I learned that friends from grad school will be bringing home their daughter from China this summer. I cried tears of happiness for them all. Then this morning, Challies put up this video. It is beautifully made and reflects a beautiful need. Immediately after viewing it I PayPal’d over $10. He didn’t say it, but I did the math and thought it … if every single Challies.com reader gave $10 they could adopt many children. Enjoy!    

  • Relationships & Peacemaking

    Peacemaker Audio

    I just filled in my compliance docs for another year serving as a Certified Christian Conciliator (with the Institute for Christian Conciliation, a division of Peacemaker Ministries). To complete the continuing education portion of the report,  I had to look up some lengths of keynotes that I listened to last fall and I want to encourage you all to check them out too. They are excellent: Peacemaker Conference Audio Recordings  

  • Uncategorized

    Higher Biblical Criticism

    TakeYourVitaminZ linked to a great article that I encourage you print, save, tweet, post, or just discuss in real life (!) with any college-bound student you know: Why “Higher Biblical Criticism” Aint So High It provides a brief and excellent summary of the point I was trying to make with my teenagers last week. (Yes, the same teenagers that I will be apologizing to in a few hours.) We had been discussing the scientific method, epistemology, and whether believing that Jesus is Lord is the same thing as believing Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are real. (Sounds like a great geography class, doesn’t it?) During our discussion, I told…

  • Relationships & Peacemaking

    Preparing to Apologize to A Room Full of Teenagers

    So, hey! There’s nothing like REAL LIFE to help us to practice our biblical peacemaking skills, right? Who needs a mediation to keep her conciliator skills sharp? Not I said the little red hen. Instead, I’ll just face my inadequacies (related to my, ahem, so-called teaching of a geography class) and prepare to make a thorough confession to a bunch of teenagers tomorrow. Time to review the Seven A’s of Confession: 1. Address everyone involved (all those whom you affected): I’ll be apologizing first, in private, to a young man and his mother because my error is really most deeply wronging them. I will explain the situation and ask for…

  • Uncategorized

    Update on Baby Micah

    Thanks to everyone who continues to write and ask about dear baby Micah. He has a “caring pages” website that you can access through the children’s hospital if you’d like to stay up to date on his progress: Message from Micah For a brief update, I can tell you that his first round of chemotherapy seems to be helping his tumors to shrink, so that is just wonderful. But he is still seriously ill and could use all of your prayers. Yesterday morning at the staff devotions for Peacemaker Ministries, Fred set up a webcam so that Micah’s parents (the dad, Jonathan, is a Peacemaker staff member) and Micah (live…

  • Momma Tara~Parenting

    Your Brain on Improv & the Genius of Play

    I thoroughly enjoyed a fascinating fifteen minutes of learning when Carolyn McCulley posted this TED video from a scientist and jazz musician who puts improv artists in a functional MRI and studies how the brain acts during creative tasks: It was particularly timely for me because: 1. I had just reviewed The Scientific Method at co-op this week with my “little kids” (ages 7 to 10) and my pre-teens and teens—and discussed the epistemological limits of the scientific method with them. So the concepts of what is knowable and how we know what we know and how we study what we know were all heavy on my mind this week.…

  • Uncategorized

    Talking to Myself this Morning

    This morning as our family was working very hard to get out the door to co-op, I was having a seriously purposeful conversation with myself. It had to do with me being more patient and gracious if other families are late to my opening/theology class AND with me not freaking out if kids were coughing and wiping drippy noses all day (because some sort of upper respiratory bug is having a hey-day in Billings right now). I was taking myself a bit to task re: having been, at times, sinfully impatient about late starts last semester. And after the petri dish of the hacky-est, cough-filled church service Sunday morning, I…

  • Uncategorized

    Hangups Re: Complementarianism

    I just had a (too brief, but great!) conversation about this very topic with a woman in the nursing mothers/cry room yesterday. Even with (especially with) strong convictions  from Scripture, we need to be oh so careful when discussing this topic. This article has some great reminders: Isn’t Scripture Enough for the Gender Debate?