I've decided to become a burden. I'm sure my friends will be thrilled to hear it. I realize that I'm already probably a lot for them to bear, but to consciously decide to burden them flies in the face of a lifetime of training. Martha's not my favorite Bible character for nothing. No, as I think about it, it's pretty difficult to overcome principles which have become more like ingrained rules: always be ready to do more than your share…

A blue post-it note in my wife's handwriting had appeared on my computer screen during the night. "Mouse under box in kitchen." The cat must have been earning her keep while I slept. When I got downstairs, however, mouse was not under box. The cat had lifted the box sometime after the message was written and now presented me with a dead gift to throw away. Everyone in my house wants mice, spiders, bats, and assorted insects that enter to…

The movie Before and After (1996) opens with the quiet narration of a young girl. Sitting alone in her tree house, she reflects that life may be going along fine until suddenly something happens that changes everything. From that moment on you date your life as being lived either before or after. Philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff makes a similar observation in his book Lament For a Son (1987). About his son's death he writes: "The world looks different now. . .…

They chuckled softly and wagged their heads remembering the times they'd been converted--gone to the front. Ed went three times; Junior only once. He'd tried time and again, but he was only eleven years old and they didn't take his raised hand seriously. Of course, he didn't wave it around, like in school to get the teacher's attention. Church was too serious for that. Perhaps they didn't see his small arm and hand, bent up at the elbow. But they…

SEDGES All winter, above, under snow, their hearts fed on dank earth, their fronds loved the wind. Between storms, a crow landed and squawked to them, cawed like an only friend. In warming, winter's dross was a hint of something more than promise and blind faith-- the curlew's cry, in portent, rent the still air, and the lake surface took it with calm rippling; while between the lake and the road three large wooden crosses, erected by a man who…

"By his foes derided, by his own rejected": only once in a great while do critics begin beating up on a film months before its premiere. I was half dreading the prospect of seeing Mel Gibson's The Passion, and it was with trepidation that I gathered the resolve to go to the theater. It had been buried daily under reams of criticism, all of which boiled down to three main complaints: it lacks context, it's too violent, and it's anti-Semitic.…

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ has stirred up more than its share of controversy. All the culture wars and disputes about the role of religion in public life have come to the surface in the debate surrounding this film. Among Christians, evangelicals have embraced the movie even as moderates and liberals have been more critical. But within the Christian community I am aware of strikingly little theological discussion concerning this film. This essay will offer some observations intended…