Funny: Sarah Beth Durst on cabbages, sentient household tools and Death. She even has links at the bottom of the post to her commentaries on other obscure fairy tales. Hilarious.
Serious: Mark deVine on C.S. Lewis and Evangelism. “Lewis admitted that from the time of his conversion in 1931, he understood his whole life as one of evangelism. To know Christ is to want Him known. Clearly, Lewis’ selective silences did not hinder his outstripping of many a Bible thumbing collar-and-back-into-a-corner style evangelist in terms of effectiveness.”
Bookish: Cindy at Dominion Family lectures on book-reading in public. “PG Wodehouse may be a safe choice. Jeeves has never been shown on the cover in his braces and he is understandable in stressful situations. You won’t easily lose a Wodehouse plot during a slide into home.”
Thought-provoking: Today at the Mission writes about the Creation story and a Mythed Opportunity. “The creation story tells me that God is present in our world in ways that are simply beyond our knowing – as scientists or religionists or anything else. The first chapter of Genesis tells me that God created a place where he could connect with people like you, and people like me . . .”
Vulnerable and encouraging: Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer tells the story of her battle with depression and panic attacks. “So, it turned out, I was experiencing God’s presence, though not in the warm and fuzzy way I expected. It was more like a helicopter rescue. He was the guy on the ladder, hanging on desperately to me while the waters churned below. If He let go, it meant sure death. But if He would just hang on to me, then maybe, maybe I could make it out of this terrible place.”
Educational: Reading aloud at lunchtime at The Common Room.
Hopeful: David Darlington wrote in July about building and repairing houses in Biloxi, Mississippi. With the media attention gone, and the casinos and WalMarts running close to normal, there’s the impression that things are ok on the gulf coast. This is most certainly not the case. Indeed, a frequent refrain — from local restaurant owners to local Baptist pastors to, believe it or not, the garbageman who stopped his truck to check out the progress we’d made on our house — was that “if it wasn’t for the churches, we’d have been forgotten long ago.”
Compassionate: Amanda at Wittingshire on Diversity and Junior High Girls. “I spent all week praying for those girls, but as so often happens, the people I want to bless ended up blessing me. In this case, it happened mostly because of a girl who was different from the others. She had Down Syndrome.”
Politically engaging: Athol Dickson asks Should We Give Up? His answer is “No!” “With a growing sense of desperation, my wife and I have been begging the Lord to raise up someone to lead this country. We will never cast our votes for a politician who thinks killing unborn children is a basic human right. That means we may not in good conscience be able to vote in the next presidential election.”
Culturally engaging: Christian film critic Jeffrey Overstreet on Phillip Pullman and his books. God is not threatened by Phillip Pullman. And people who stop to think through Pullman’s story, and how it is that he “refutes” Christianity, will see what a feeble “attack” against Christian belief it really is.
Thankful: iMonk writes about the faith of a suffering servant named Doc.
Convicting, and just in under the wire: Queen Shenaynay, who’s earned the right this year to speak from experience, says, “And even when you make a resolution that falls short of the span of the year, you will have cast your cosmic vote that the personal pursuit of what is good and worthy is still good and worthy. There’s something to be said for that. . . . Even when I fall short, I still like the way resolve feels. It’s fire in the belly. I like it.”