Blog
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At Home Away from Home by Sharon Garlough Brown
We can be at home with members of the family of God, wherever in the world we find ourselves. What an amazing truth and gift, as Sharon Brown so movingly writes this week in our home series. I rave about her novels in the Sensible Shoes series, in which her characters live out the spiritual…
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Lenten Poems – Becoming Lesser (10)
John the Baptist, in his words and in his life, prepared the way for the Lord. How are you preparing the way for the Lord during this season of Lent?
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Lenten Poems – Born Again (9)
The first chunk of John 3 is filled with truth and life and seeming mysteries and contradictions: How can an adult be born again? How are we born of the Spirit? Why did God send his Son to die? Why do those doing evil seek darkness over the light? For those who have ears to…
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America is…
Ouch, I commented, when a friend shared a poem by the British poet Brian Bilston, “America is a Gun.” (It’s posted on his public Facebook page here.) My reaction was visceral, for guns bring forth so many emotions from Americans. I’ve shot a gun before – at a target, mind – but that fact might…
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Lenten Poems – In My Father’s House (8)
As we see in today’s reading, Jesus called for true worship of his Father. We can picture the ruckus he must have caused among the people in Jerusalem, with all the gossip and discussion afterward – not only of driving out the merchants, but in his cryptic remark about raising the temple in three day.…
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Devotional of the week: Transformed (8 in Pilgrim series)
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be…
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Lenten Poems – A Wedding Feast (7)
I wonder how the disciples felt when they watched Jesus turn water into wine for a great wedding celebration. So much symbolism, especially as we think about the wedding of the Lamb, the Lover and Beloved, God and the church. The wine poured out is his blood, shed for our redemption. May you know the…
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Home of the Heart by Penelope Swithinbank
I’m delighted to welcome Penelope Swithinbank to the “There’s No Place Like Home” series. I knew of Penelope before I knew her, for she and her husband arrived at my former home church in Virginia shortly after I moved to her native England. They now run a gorgeous-looking retreat centre that I long to visit…
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Lenten Poems – Questions and Answers (6)
Questions and answers. The questions – who was this? The answers – he knew their name. He saw who they were at their essence. So does he with us today. He calls us by name. He knows us.
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Lenten Poems – Look and See! (5)
“Look and see!” says John the Baptist. He who had been given a special grace of seeing the unseen called those around him to open their eyes and see. To know that this Jesus was God’s Chosen One, the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us,…
