Category: Friends

A Child’s Christmas in Montana… er, Wales

My parents loved poetry. Better yet, they knew how to make that love contagious. My mother recited Keats and Browning (both Brownings) from memory, fitting them to our own lives, while my father… my father gave us Dylan Thomas and “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” Prose to some, but poetry to me. My father’s voice was wonderful to hear, not […]

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Your Pain. My Pain. And Our Stories…

Your Pain. My Pain. And Our Stories…

A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. That is how Scripture describes our Lord Jesus Christ. Look into your enemy’s heart and you’ll see pain there. Perhaps, yes, it is pain he or she made for themselves. And perhaps it is pain someone else made for them, or fear instills in them. Before you respond to your enemy, remember their […]

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Why are you so RUDE!?

Why are you so RUDE!?

When I was young, and someone was rude to me, I nearly always let them know it. Words are my domain, baby, so don’t tap my turntable. But now that I’m floating in the sea of middle-age, I find my response is usually to just be quiet and take it. Too much energy expended to reprove ‘em, and there’s usually […]

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Who’s Friend Are You?

Who’s Friend Are You?

What does “friendship” consist of? Who is, in the real sense, a “friend”? We use the term “friend” casually on face book and in other social relationships. We don’t want to hurt our “friends” yet are very willing to hurt God — Christ as the poor, the dispossessed, the hungry, the homeless. We are willing, for the sake of “friendship,” […]

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A Hunger for Their Ashes

A Hunger for Their Ashes

When my mother died and was cremated, we six took her ashes and in the back yard of the house we’d grown up in formed a circle. We took my father’s ashes, which had been saved for just this moment, and carefully opened both of the thick plastic bags. And then we took turns removing from each bag a portion […]

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Come and Follow Jesus – Interview with JPUSA’s Project 12 Discipleship School’s Director Curt Mortimer

Come and Follow Jesus – Interview with JPUSA’s Project 12 Discipleship School’s Director Curt Mortimer

[This interview includes a list of classes which may no longer completely represent our schedule. They do, however, offer a flavor of what Project 12 offers. — jon] *Curt, the name… what in the world does “Project 12″ mean? The word “Project” means centered on goals and the number 12 evokes the twelve disciples. The goals of Project 12 are: […]

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An Odd Advent Meditation: Is Hardness the Prelude to Brokenness?

An Odd Advent Meditation: Is Hardness the Prelude to Brokenness?

I think a lot about the hardness of human hearts. I feel oppressed, depressed, beaten down by the many examples of “man’s inhumanity to man.” I look in the mirror and see someone looking back at me whom I at times do not know. That face doesn’t tell me anything I don’t read into it. Hardness is not always seen […]

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A Heart Cry for a Skeptical Friend

A Heart Cry for a Skeptical Friend

[Originally published on Wilson Station June 6, 2011.] I wrote this recently in response to a friend’s self-confident writings about why he had left the Christian faith behind. It was one of many back and forth communications we have had. It is not a perfect argument for God, or some well-crafted Atheist-busting syllogisms. It is, I suspect, more a cry […]

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Personal Pain and Reality Distortion

Personal Pain and Reality Distortion

A few years ago, in response to an illness, a doctor gave me a powerful anti-biotic called Factive. The cure was worse than the disease. I ended up on my bathroom tile floor, racked with pain through my entire gastro-intestinal tract. And in the midst of that pain, the worst physical pain I’ve ever known, I found myself praying that […]

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The Cruel Joke: Finding Hell in Humor — C. S. Lewis

The Cruel Joke: Finding Hell in Humor — C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters offer up one side of a “correspondence” between two tempters from hell, one (whom we never actually hear from) being the Junior Tempter and the other (his “uncle” with all the creepiest meanings of that word) being the first’s tutor. Below is a short tutorial the elder demon Screwtape offers regarding the proper use of […]

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