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A Balancing Act
I remember playing a game as a child in which we would bend one knee and grab our foot behind us and then try to race—limping, stumbling and falling over as we struggled across the grass toward a fini... -
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Chiaroscuro: Light and Dark Together
The very nature of light provides contrast. In juxtaposition, differing levels of light illuminate in extraordinary ways, helping us to see what we’ve been missing. In the late 1400s, the art world ma... -
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Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation. -
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Beauty is that which, when seen, pleases. -
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I would later learn that these are two characteristics of beauty: it never stays, and it never fully satisfies. -
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Codifying Beauty
In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas codified beauty as being directly connected to Jesus Christ with three characteristic features. He wrote, “Species or beauty has a likeness to the property of... -
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It is as if in creating us God asked a question, and in awakening us to contemplation He answered the question, so that the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer. -
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Mutual Accusations
In the mid-1980s, I helped facilitate a series of conferences between top Soviet and American policy advisers on the question of how to prevent a nuclear war. The times were tense and the accusations ... -
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The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living ... -
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Util and Frui
Two Latin words are used to describe useful and beautiful things: util and frui. Util means useful, beneficial, helpful. Frui means enjoyable, pleasurable, and delightful. The created world is both fr... -
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Confrontation Defined
The Latin term for confrontation means “to turn your face toward, to look at frontally.” It merely indicates that you are turning toward the relationship and the person. You are face-to-face, so to sp... -
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A moment of grace lies in all beauty: it shows itself to me far beyond what I have a right to expect, which is why we feel astonishment and adoration. -
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The Perfect (Mythical) Woman
In her excellent little book (Mythical Me), Richella Parham begins by describing a single event that led to a personal journey into addressing her struggles with comparison. Having recently moved to a... -
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God Dislikes Uniformity
The South African politician Nic Diederichs—a prominent leader during the apartheid era—once made a rather provocative observation: God, he said, dislikes deadly uniformity. I hate to admit that I lik... -
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Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end. With this compas... -
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Balancing Home and Career Gracefully
Contemporary society assumes that we make a choice: one member of a household will be the “homemaker” and the other the “breadwinner” (i.e., in the marketplace generating income to sustain the home). ... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Psalm 8 (Guide A)
Plenipotentiary Anyone know what a “plenipotentiary” is? Try that compound Latin word on for size! It is derived from the Latin words plenus “full” and potens “power.” It refers to a person who p... -
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Honoring the Body without Worshipping It
The spiritual discipline of honoring the body helps us find our way between the excesses of a culture that glorifies and objectifies the body and the excesses of Christian tradition that have often de... -
scripture guide
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 (Guide B)
Intro These are incredibly rich texts. This guide recommends taking a detour through salvation history to put them in their right context. This helps your congregation expand their understanding of ... -
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An attempt to wrest from God the prerogatives of absolute freedom and infinity leads to the inversion of Pentecost and what is in effect a new Babel. 'Postmodernism' represents that Babel perf... -
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To bless is to bridge. A blessing is a bridge to belonging, built right in the place we feel separated from hope. Words of blessing bring us back to the beautiful truth of being human: we belong to on... -
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Only the beautiful is loved . . . we cannot help loving what is beautiful. -
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Have you ever noticed how closely
Have you ever noticed how closely the words longing and belonging are connected? I’m not sure of their exact etymology, but I do believe that our deepest longing in life is to be-... -
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Using Jesus as a Model when Negotiating during the Cold War
Dag Hammarskjöld, a Swedish economist and diplomat deeply committed to his Christian faith, served as the Secretary-General of the United Nations during some of the most turbulent times of the Cold Wa... -
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The Biblical Helper: Ezer
Adam was called by God to take care of Eden. But it was too much work for one man. Eden was massive. Adam was incapable of gardening the whole thing. He needed help. That’s why God created Eve. Go... -
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What Trees Can Teach us About Good Neighborhoods
There is a paradigm shift going on in the realm of forestry. For years there had been a consensus among ecologists that all trees were independent operators, each tree an island unto itself, the fores... -
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Many economic fallacies are due to conceiving of economic activity as a zero-sum contest, in which what is gained by one is lost by another. This in turn is often due to ignoring the fact that wealth ... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, 2 Timothy 1:1-14
God as the Thanksgiving Hub Given how pervasive the theme of gratitude is in Scripture—and how my wife and I try to condition our children always to say “thank you” to anyone who shows them even the ... -
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The Root of the Word Doubt
The root of our English term doubt has to do with duplicity. It is being divided or doubled up in our thinking. But this isn’t a matter of simply being confused or unable to make up our mind or ... -
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Cultivating Blessing Through Our Work
Looking through the lens of Holy Scripture, human work must be seen first and foremost as value contribution, not economic compensation. We can have a flourishing, fruitful life even if we don’t get a...
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