blip : Beyond Lost Intellectual Ponderings :

If you’re interested, I wrote up a short reflection about my time with a Mennonite church in Lancaster, PA. Here’s an excerpt:
A crowd assembles along the sidewalk in front of East Chestnut Street Mennonite Church on a Monday evening. Pastor Ron Adams blesses the food, and hungry people file through the entryway and into the fellowship hall. [...]

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I wrote a reflection on my week-long visit with the people of Mt. Zion Mennonite Church in Boonsboro, Maryland. Here’s an excerpt:
From the window of the nursery I can see the cemetery that stretches across the hill alongside the church — a field planted with rectangular stones to mark the graves of the faithful: Stauffer, [...]

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About a month ago I had the opportunity to spend a week with an Hispanic Mennonite congregation in Dallas, Texas. I wrote up a short piece about my experience. Here’s an excerpt:
The Bible study before the Sunday morning worship service of Iglesia Menonita Luz del Evangelio turns into a passionate sermon.

A discussion of the story of [...]

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(The piece below is a revised version of my article that appeared in The Mennonite; I sent the editor my revisions a few days too late)

I believe in the Holy Spirit

“Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind” (Acts 2:2Acts 2:2English: Contemporary English Version (1999) – CEV2 Suddenly there was a [...]

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For the next four months I’ll be visiting different Mennonite congregations through the USA. These trips are part of a grant I received from the Louisville Institute: Gifts of Unity. While on the road I’ll be writing for the Mennonite Weekly Review. My first column describes what I’m trying to do. Here’s an excerpt:

God is [...]

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Robin died of pneumonia in the woods behind Wal-Mart. She lived in the forest for the past decade, but it wouldn’t be exactly true to say that she was homeless. She called the forest her home. She turned the woods into her dwelling by hanging pictures of her family on the trees surrounding her cozy [...]

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Easter is an invitation to fall into the love of Christ’s resurrected life. That’s basically what I write about in my recent contribution to The Mennonite magazine. It’s a reflection on the Easter account in John 21, with special attention to Mary Magdalene’s love affair with Jesus:
Resurrection is not a quick fix for our problems; [...]

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I wrote a short piece for The Mennonite. Here’s an excerpt:
Our Mennonite identity is always disturbed; the church is broken; our congregations are torn. People come and go. Disagreements reemerge and threaten to drive us apart. Congregations dissolve, and others are born.

The church is in a precarious state of unsettled tornness. That’s simply what it [...]

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I wrote a short review of Hauerwas and Coles’ book from last year, Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary (Cascade). It appears in the current issue of the Mennonite Weekly Review (May 4, 2009). Here’s an excerpt:
Politics involves all the ways we tend to the common good. This happens in our neighborhoods, not just in [...]

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The good people over at The Mennonite printed a short Advent meditation I wrote on Mary. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Mary shows us how to extend hospitality to God, which is simply what it means to be a disciple. She made room for God’s life within her own. She opened her life, her very [...]

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