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When Fire Makes Things Grow
Trivia time! What natural disaster is the most destructive to a forest? Chances are that the first thing that comes to mind is a forest fire. After all, fire is pure destruction to plants. What possib... -
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Sleepwalking in a Dark Wood
For many of us, life can easily become disorienting and discouraging. Existential questions often emerge that never have before. As stressful as modern life can be, it is somewhat comforting to know t... -
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Re-creating the Conditions of Earth
In the desert outside of Tucson, scientists dreamed up an experiment to re-create the conditions of earth for space, when and if the earth could not be made great again. The biosphere was a little wor... -
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Christ Will not Leave You Seeing Walking Trees
R. C. Sproul recounts an unusual healing by Jesus. In Mark 8, when Jesus visits Bethsaida, a blind man is brought to him to be healed. Jesus leads him out of the village, puts saliva on his eyes, and ... -
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Hardships Force our Roots to Go Deep
A. Parnell Bailey visited an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was unusually dry and some of the trees were beginning to die for lack of water. The man giving the tour ... -
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Throwing Away Valuable Resources
In many parts of the country, leaf clean-up is an annual chore. They fall from the trees, blanket our lawns, and we often bag them up and toss them out (or burn them). There’s a lesson in this… In my... -
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Pruning Strengthens: A Botanist's View on Pain
Any experienced gardener has heard of a botanical term called Apical (ah-pick-ul) dominance. In most plants that grow from a central stem, from maple trees to bush peas, whatever branch is at the top ... -
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The Sense of an Ending
Life is short, and we can accomplish only so much. Much of what we do will remain unfinished. For now. In one of my favorite short stories of all time, “Leaf by Niggle,” author J. R. R. Tolkien provid... -
lectionary
Christmas: Nativity of the Lord
Preaching Commentary Rediscovering the Wonder of Jesus’ Birth It is said that familiarity breeds contempt, but sometimes familiarity breeds something far less intense, but equally as destructive—co... -
liturgy
Gracious and faithful God–our Creator,
Gracious and faithful God–our Creator, Redeemer and Comforter: When we don’t know the way–You show us the way; and when we can’t find a way–You make a way. Thank you! Thank you for Your gift of a Sav... -
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Christmas in Mosul
Living rooms and shop windows aren’t the only places where decorations are meaningful features of Christmas. When Iraqi forces expelled the Islamic State from the predominantly Christian city of Mosul... -
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St. Anthony and the Search for God Amidst Crisis
Given life’s unpredictability and the inevitability of pain and hardship, what do we do when that pain and hardship show up on our doorsteps? In roughly AD 270, there was a man in Lower Egypt named An... -
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The Oak and the Reed
Consider Aesop’s fable, in which a mighty oak tree asked a reed, “Why do you not plant your feet deeply in the ground, and raise your head boldly in the air as I do?” The reed responded, “I am content... -
Quote
If the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the . . . unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar... -
liturgy
Trusting in God's Tender Mercy
Trusting in God’s tender mercy, let us confess our sin to God with one another. Gracious God, We confess the the dead and fruitless branches in our lives, shriveled by the wintery storms of... -
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People by nature build, tear down, and rebuild. We build our hopes, get disappointed, and then search for renewed hope. -
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The human capacity for burden is like bamboo – far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance. -
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From Heaven to Earth
I am watching a family of black-tailed squirrels. I should be working on a Christmas message but can’t focus. They seem set on entertaining me. They scamper amid the roots of the tree north of my offi... -
liturgy
Holy Trinity, Community of Love
Holy Trinity, Community of Love, Draw us together in your creative light Root us in the ground of your being, Vulnerable before one another, Unashamed in your presence and each other’s Make us joyfu... -
Quote
“It seems, then,” said Tirian, smiling himself, “that the Stable seen from within and the Stable seen from without are two different places.” “Yes,” said the Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than it... -
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Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made. -
liturgy
Creator Spirit, by whose aid The
Creator Spirit, by whose aid The world's foundations first were laid, Come, visit every pious mind; Come, pour thy joys on humankind; From sin and sorrow set us free, And make thy temples worthy t... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Isaiah 65:17-25
Scripture’s proclivity for a new creation Some people have an aversion to describing a future day when the troubles of this world will have passed into oblivion, the kitchen-table expression being “p... -
liturgy
O God, whose reason rules the world,
O God, whose reason rules the world, who formed the starry heights above, timeless, time’s chain far forth you hurled, unmoved, gave all things power to move. Prevailed on by no outside cause to fashi... -
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Cairns and Inherited Ways of Prayer and Worship
Years ago, during a vacation in New Hampshire, Jonathan and I climbed Mount Washington, which is notorious for erratic weather. It can change from sunny and warm to snowing in a few hours. The wind is... -
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One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak. -
liturgy
Our Father, Lord, the world is sometimes a dragon
Our Father, Lord, the world is sometimes a dragon with teeth set to devour the dreams of our children. Help our little ones go softly from our homes remembering all we taught them of your great love a... -
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My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed into new forms. -
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Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God's new Temple. They are, individually and corporately, places where heaven and earth meet. -
liturgy
Our sins had taken root deeply
Our sins had taken root deeply, down to the deepest soils of our hearts. Know that Christ has uprooted our sins to the last fiber, planting His Word of forgiveness that can never wither.
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