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Our Jagged Lives
When I was a kid, I thought it was a cool trick to break a pencil and then slide the jagged ends back together. If I was careful, I could fit them together so no one could see the pencil … Continue reading
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The Prophetic Ministry of Life and Death
Life, and prophets, can throw us a curve ball. The widow Zarephath found this out when she took in Elijah. When they met, she was ready to die after she made her last handful of flour into bread for herself … Continue reading
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I Should Have Danced
Last night Teckla and I found ourselves sitting at a table in the Port Orford Community Building watching a bunch of people dance to excellent Cajun music. Peter’s band, Bone Mountain Brothers, had opened for the Etouffee Band, so we … Continue reading
The Oliver Twist School of Theology
I am a prodigy. At age 16 I finished an advanced degree in the Oliver Twist School of Theology. I possess an M. I. degree—a Masters of Impertinence. Like Oliver Twist at his workhouse, I have learned to say, “Please, … Continue reading
Log-jam
For the last couple months I haven’t written anything. I am not certain the reason for the writer’s block. A loss of confidence or dearth of ideas? A fondness for words like “dearth”? Or perhaps it is a log-jam, too … Continue reading
Healing Hope in Rivendell
Tolkien tells us that while Bilbo and the dwarves were at Rivendell, “Their clothes were mended as well as their bruises, their tempers, and their hopes.” The longer I live, the more deeply I understand that hope needs mending. I … Continue reading
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Bilbo’s Door
Gandalf scratches a queer sign” on Bilbo’s freshly painted door. After a bustling invasion of hooded dwarves, Bilbo is upset by “a hard rat-tat on the hobbit’s beautiful green door. Somebody was banging with a stick.” Gandalf, we are told, … Continue reading
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Back to the Blood
Because I am an English teacher, I have always cared about the words we use to communicate the gospel. I am sensitive to how language and even the connotations change. What were once fresh metaphors dry out and lose their … Continue reading
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The Bram Stoker School of Counseling
In a reent post, “Wild Roses, Garlic, and Wooden Crosses,” I remarked how in Stoker’s Dracula these natural things are important weapons against vampires. The more I meditate on this use of the natural to overcome evil, the more I … Continue reading
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Wild Roses, Garlic and Wooden Stakes
I recently read Bram Stoker’s Dracula as preparation for a talk on the meaning of monsters—a kind of theology of monsters. I had never read Dracula before and, to be honest, had never had any interest in vampires despite their … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, On Faith, Uncategorized
Tagged Dracula, garlic, Humility, Vampires, Van Helsing
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