ruth on Surprise

J. R. R. Tolkien coined the term "eucatastrophe" to refer to the unexpected happy ending at the end of a fairy tale, achieved by grace rather than effort. The consolation of fairy-stories,...

A student who had recently lost his sight was sent to the Seeing Eye Institute for the Blind in Morristown, New Jersey, for specialized training. Upon arrival, he was greeted by another young ma...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? On the Road to Jerusalem Luke 13 begins with Jesus teaching on the nature of the kingdom of God and it concludes with ...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? On the Road to Jerusalem Luke 13 begins with Jesus teaching on the nature of the kingdom of God and it concludes with our passage, in w...

A Valentine’s Day Tradition What better way to say, “I love you,” than passing your beloved some sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, and glycerin wrapped in a chalkly Necco wafer heart? Maybe some of you re...

“God pity them both! and pity us all,  Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;  For of all sad words of tongue or pen,  The saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’  Ah, well! for us all some...

I have a friend who says he wants to write a book on the life of Jesus and call it “a theology of interruptions.” Because, he says, so many of the things that Jesus said or did in the Gospel stories h...

For Those Who Still Hope I am Sarah  Bitter and barren   Burnt out by this promise that never came Worn out from waiting  Laughing to hide the aching  Longing for these empty arms to hold a baby B...

My friend Wendy calls the incremental disappointments we endure over the years “the slow leak of life.”

The story is told (as in, it’s made up!) of a small dog that had been struck by a car and lay wounded by the side of the road. A doctor driving by noticed the dog was still alive, stopped his car, pic...

Lord – You are good …and Your goodness knows no bounds. When we were lost, You sought us out, found us and brought us home. When we were alone, You came near to us, and You gave us a new circle of fri...

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...

The etymology of certain words can profoundly enrich our understanding and experience of life. Consider the word “consolation.” Its roots lie in the Latin words “con-” meaning “ “to be ” and “solus,...

Love is the crazy, mad, and perhaps ridiculous gesture of saying yes to life, of seeing it as worthy of our embrace and even worthy of our total sacrifice.

Jesus’ parable [of the banquet in Luke 14:16-23] makes it clear that there are business and career invitations . Some people had real estate that demanded attention, and others had invested in ox...

God of nurture and care, You seek to gather us together as a mother hen gathers her chicks. You seek to be our refuge in times of trouble. As we have gathered together today, draw us closer to You, de...

In an interview discussing her most recent book Hamnet, the novelist Maggie O’Farrell shares a great analogy on grief. It started with research she needed to do on embroidery, an area in which she was...

The daily e-newsletter 1440, tries to share regular stories of human kindness. This one, from Carl G. in Noblesville, Indiana, is quite touching:  My daughter just got married and was on Southwest...

A truly remarkable example of sacrificial courage took place in Folsom, New Mexico, in 1908. When a flood was racing toward the valley, a resident from the hills warned a local woman, S. J. Brooks, th...

My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.

Use what you have, use what the world gives you. Use the first day of fall: bright flame before winter's deadness; harvest; orange, gold, amber; cool nights and the smell of fire. Our tree-lined s...

Father—you know us like no-one else; and ...You love us like no-one else. Thank You for your manifold gifts. For the gift of life—we thank You. For the gift of each new day—we thank You. For the gift ...

Through Jesus’s family tree, God puts his grace on display. God is reminding us that he can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves: pick up broken pieces and put them together, take broken lives an...

Faith makes all things possible. Love makes all things easy.

The story is told of a little girl who prayed, “Lord, make the bad people good and the good people nice.”

What’s the bravest thing you ever did? . . . Getting up this morning.

The True Self is all about right relationship, not requirements. It’s not about being correct; it’s about being connected, which you always were—you just didn’t realize it.

And so we arrive at autumn, the conclusion of our ordinary time in the land. The seeds planted at the start of our pilgrimage have produced a harvest in fields, homes, and towns. Farms display God’s a...

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.

The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.