I refuse, anymore, to spit at God. I refuse to see anyone as a barnacle. I long for everyone to be fully and joyfully on deck and 100% in the conversation about our destination.
Keith MannesMarch 6, 2023
Dust. Always there. Moving, resting, floating, twirling, dancing, hitchhiking across the room on invisible currents even when the sun isn’t around to make it known. It is ubiquitous, omnipresent—always present even on the cloudy days when my eyes can’t find it.
Christy BerghoefFebruary 20, 2023
Much usage and circulation over the centuries has worn down and obscured the relief of these linguistic coins, their image and superscription. The date of mint and object of commemoration is now difficult to discern. We speak with them. But rarely do they speak to us. Should we have ears to hear, they could tell a rich story of Christian experience and reflection.
Lee HardyFebruary 13, 2023
I am now just over halfway through my employment contract, and I am excited to report that, in addition to vast amounts of Dutch vocabulary and grammar, I am learning many important truths. One of them is what it means to be Dutch. Turns out, I am not as Dutch as I imagined.
Doug BrouwerFebruary 6, 2023
We knew all those years ago what our slow-walking and half-measures would mean for you. We knew that even with all the progress we have made over the last several decades, powerful climate impacts were already baked into the atmosphere. We knew that your world would be fundamentally altered from the one we had known. We knew that glorious future you are getting ready to explore would be more dangerous and more unpredictable because of us.
Kyle Meyaard-SchaapJanuary 30, 2023
When football teams brag that God gave them the win, when musical artists sing about drinking and sex and then win an award and point to the heavens and thank Jesus, when people put silver fish on their cars amid bumper stickers about God and guns . . . I’m sick of all of it. Sick of tee-shirts with bloody images of Jesus on his cross and yards signs declaring Jesus is Lord of our county. Even Christian music, all…
Keith MannesJanuary 23, 2023
Dr. King, the brightest light of the Civil Rights Movement, the descendant of enslaved people, is being appropriated by white conservatives for purposes which, if you peel back all the layers of rhetoric, are ultimately racist. On this day, of all days, it is time to repudiate this, in Ottawa County and beyond.
Jeff MunroeJanuary 16, 2023
Eugene was far more comfortable with ambiguity than most hometown believers I knew back then, and he generally assumed (a presumption many interpreted as naïve) that people of goodwill could arrive at vastly different conclusions but still, awkwardly perhaps, learn to live together.
James SchaapJanuary 9, 2023
We need the stories of the Gospels more than ever as our churches bicker and break apart. We need to walk with Jesus and to hear his teaching. We need to know what love looks like, how to face the empires of our day, how to resist evil non-violently. Jesus is the Word of God written by the finger of God on the tablet of the earth. The acts of Jesus are our commandments and guide to the abundant life.
Tom BoogaartJanuary 2, 2023